Starpilot's Grave: Book Two of Mageworlds (31 page)

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Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald

BOOK: Starpilot's Grave: Book Two of Mageworlds
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The underbay was a dim, low-ceilinged cave where metal ladders rose up like stalagmites from the deckplates to hatches overhead. A number of the hatches had their status lights off, meaning that the corresponding slot in the open bay above was empty. Red or amber lights meant that the craft docked overhead was low on fuel or down for repair. Ari shook his head.
Green. I need a long-range craft in status green.
A figure appeared unexpectedly out of the shadows in the depths of the bay, making Ari’s breath catch in momentary panic. But it was only a member of the maintenance crew in a grease-stained uniform, heading from one access ladder to another. He gave Ari an amiable grin as he came near.
“Hey, Doc—what are you doing down here in fighter country?”
“Double-checking the emergency medical kits,” Ari lied. The blaster was in his right hand, on the side of his body away from the mechanic; he hoped that the half-light would blur the weapon’s outline enough to do the rest.
That, and the fact that nobody expects the head medic to be armed and dangerous.
“The pilots are supposed to check the kits themselves, but you know how they are.”
“I sure do.” The mechanic shook his head. “You wouldn’t believe some of the things I’ve seen them try.”
“It can’t be worse than the stuff they get up to when they’re on shore leave,” said Ari. “I’m not going to trust any of them to remember the medical kits either.”
“Good thinking, Doc. Which fighters do you want to check out first?”
“I might as well start with the long-range craft.”
The mechanic nodded his head back toward the row of ladders behind him. “Right over there.”
“Thanks.”
With one, two, three green lights in a row. Oh, yes
… .
Ari climbed up the nearest ladder and through the hatch into the body of the docked fighter. It was a bit cramped—most pilots were smaller than he was—but he was able to reach the cockpit and strap himself in. He looked out the forward viewscreen into the airless expanse of the upper bay, with the blackness of deep space showing beyond the open dock portal, and drew a deep breath.
This isn’t the
’Hammer,
and it isn’t an atmospheric craft either, but you can handle either one of those with your eyes closed. And this one is simple enough that even fighter jocks can figure it out
.
A quick inspection of the controls showed him that most of the deep-space instrumentation was familiar from his time on
Warhammer.
The weapons he could ignore, with any luck, and the stuff for close-in maneuvering; that left only the problem of navigation. With the aid of a standard navicomp, he could plot a jump-run and a hyperspace transit—but he wasn’t a professional starpilot and it usually took him quite a while.
Fortunately for him, he reflected, most fighter pilots weren’t navigators either. He switched on the cockpit navicomp. The screen lit up, but instead of the usual array of data and calculations it showed him a brief list of preset options:
MANDEYN
ARTAT
KIIN-ALOQ
RETURN TO BASE
OTHER [SPECIFY]
 
The navicomp had a pickup for voice input built into the side of the screen. He hit the “on” button.
“Galcen,” he said.
The screen blinked and a new message appeared beneath the last line of the menu: OUT OF RANGE.
“Nammerin.”
OUT OF RANGE.
Damnation.
“Maraghai.”
OUT OF RANGE.
Blast it, is
everywhere
out of range on these tubs
? He made on more desperate try. “Gyffer.”
EXTREME RANGE. NO RETURN POSSIBLE. CONFIRM CHOICE YES/NO?
“Yes.”
MAIN SHIP’S MEMORY ENGAGED. WORKING.
Damn. I hope they’re too busy with their treason and mutiny to spot this.
Ari held his breath.
JUMP-RUN AND TRANSIT PLOTTED AND LAID IN. MAIN SHIP’S MEMORY DISENGAGED. SEQUENCE RUN YES/NO?
“Yes,” said Ari, and the fighter’s engines came to life.
 
Tyche heard the underhatch of the recon ship clank open and shut again. Heavy footsteps sounded on the deckplates, and a few seconds later one of his troopers came into the compartment carrying a sheaf of papers and printout flimsies and a handful of datachips. After juggling awkwardly for a moment to get all his prizes into one hand, the trooper came to attention and saluted.
“Docking bay and all embarked craft now secure, sir!”
“Very good,” said Tyche. “What is the status of the armed intruders aboard the
Selsyn
?”
“We’ve got them pinned down in the CIC.
Selsyn
’s own security forces hold the bridge and the engineering spaces.”
“Good,” said Tyche again. “Coordinate with
Selsyn
’s people and take CIC as soon as possible.” He indicated the flimsies and datachips. “And what are these?”
“Hardcopy messages and log chips from the captured scout, sir,” the trooper said, and placed them down on the common-room table with a flourish.
Tyche picked up the hardcopy and glanced through it, conscious as he did so of Metadi and Quetaya watching him. The first few pages were more than enough; he could feel the blood leaving his face as he read. He put the loose bundle of papers back on the table and pushed them over toward the General.
“You’ll want to look at these, sir,” he said. “This isn’t just a mutiny we’re dealing with. Vallant has sold out to the Magelords, and this is a war.”
 
The Mage warfleet is in the system, and Prime is already in their hands.
In the deep-buried Operations Center of the Adepts’ Retreat, General Ochemet stared at Master Ransome in shock and disbelief. “I ought to have been there,” he said finally. “You had no right—you tricked me into coming here, and then held me against my will.”
His voice grew sharper as his anger mounted. “And just whose side are you on, anyway?”
The accusation brought a sudden quiet to the crowded room. Master Tellyk, standing at Ochemet’s elbow, gasped and reddened, but Errec Ransome’s face remained as pale and cold as if it had been cut from marble.
“I belong to the Guild,” he said. “And the Guild has fought against the Magelords since the beginning.”
Ochemet stood his ground. “So has the service, damn you. I should have been with my people when the attack came.”
The Adept’s expression softened a little. “Even if you had been there you couldn’t have stopped it. The Mages’ warfleet is too massive, and Galcen’s close-in defenses were overwhelmed. Also—we were betrayed.”
Ochemet drew a sharp breath. “What are you talking about?”
“Magework,” said Ransome. “Magework and sorcery. Here on Galcen, working to bring down the Republic and the Guild both.”
“Are you certain?”
“I’ve been certain for a long time,” Ransome told him. “But the Galcen Mage-Circle was well hidden and seldom active. I didn’t have the means to search it out. Now, though—now they are acting openly, and we will destroy them. Come.”
The thought of doing something, anything, to strike back at the attackers was tempting, but Ochemet still harbored suspicions of his own. “What do you need me for?”
“Local knowledge,” Ransome said. “In Jos Metadi’s absence, you have access to all of Prime Base.”
“Which you tell me has already fallen.” Ochemet shook his head. “No. Pick a story and keep to it.”
Ransome made an impatient gesture with one hand. “In the long run, it doesn’t matter who holds Prime. What matters is that we find the Mage-Circle at work there and destroy it. After that, the civilized galaxy may have a fighting chance.”
“A nice thought,” said Ochemet. “If I decide to believe you, that is.” He folded his arms and looked Errec Ransome up and down. “At the moment, frankly, the distinction between the Master of the Adepts’ Guild and an ordinary traitor doesn’t seem all that clear.”
“Think whatever you want,” said Ransome. “But choose. Stand here and do nothing, or come to Prime with me.”
The Adept turned and strode off. After a moment, Ochemet sighed and hurried to catch up with him.
They plunged still farther into the depths beneath the Retreat, through dimly lit passageways carved from cold stone. From time to time they overtook and passed other men and women—Adepts, Ochemet supposed, though instead of dressing in black and carrying wooden staves, these wore pressure gear and carried flight helmets.
At length Ochemet and Ransome came out into a huge, vaulted docking bay filled with armored atmospheric craft, nearspace short-range fighters, and stargoing recon-scouts. The far end of the cavern lay open to the sky, and Ochemet saw that light was growing there as the sun rose over the uplands. All about him was the organized confusion of a well-trained strike force making ready to launch.
“You didn’t put this setup together yesterday.” Ochemet had to shout to make his voice heard over the din. “How long have you known that the Mageworlds were planning to attack?”
“Nothing was known,” said the Adept. “But while the Mageworlds existed, the threat of treachery existed. And we prepared ourselves to meet it.”
Still talking, Ransome led the way through the crowded bay to a nondescript aircar with a civilian number stenciled on its side. “For a long time the Magelords watched me. I could only work through agents, or not at all. But now—while they are distracted and busy with bringing their plans to fruition—now I have a little time when I can act unseen.”
Ochemet nodded mutely and followed Ransome into the aircar. The Adept strapped down in the pilot’s position and donned a set of earphones.
“Ready to launch,” he said over the voice pickup.
A blue guide light floated down from the ceiling in front of the aircar and began clearing a way forward through the tangle of large and small craft. Ransome brought the aircar along after the light at a sedate glide, coming eventually to a runway laid out in the stone of the cavern floor. The guide light hovered in front of the aircar for a few seconds longer and then went out.
“So now it begins again,” Ransome said, and pushed the throttles of the aircar all the way forward.
Engines roaring, the aircar hurtled down the runway, then out through the bright blue opening to soar among the crags. Looking back, Ochemet noticed that the cavern’s mouth actually lay below the level of the highest peaks.
“That’s a clever setup you’ve got there,” he admitted. “If anyone was watching, your launch point’s going to be lost in all the ground clutter.”
Ransome gave him a quick, impatient look. “It had better be. With Prime gone and South Polar’s fighter craft destroyed on the ground, what you saw back there is all that Galcen has.”
 
GALCEN NEARSPACE THE OUTER NET GALCEN: PRIME BASE
 
“F
ROM SPACE, the heart-world of the Adepts is truly a beautiful sight. I count myself fortunate that I have lived to experience this day.”
In his flagship orbiting above Galcen Prime, Grand Admiral Theio syn-Ricte sus-Airaalin paced back and forth before the row of viewports overlooking the blue and green planet below. The autoscribe pinned to his collar caught the words as he spoke and stored them for inclusion in his next report to the no-longer-hidden Resurgency on Eraasi.
sus-Airaalin was a lean, wiry man—not tall, by the standards of the Adept-worlds, but above average for an Eraasian of the old stock—with black hair going prematurely grey. He wore plain brown fatigues tucked into leather boots, with shoulder and collar insignia of dull metal. Nothing about him glittered or caught the light; even the short ebony staff clipped to his belt had only the simplest of silver binding.
He continued talking to the autoscribe. “We have come this far successfully, after breaking through the artificial barrier at the Gap Between—successfully, but not without cost, in ships and in time. We can ill afford to lose more of either.”
Frowning, he glanced over at the twin chronometers set into the bulkhead between the viewports. One chronometer gave the elapsed time since the operation began; the other showed how far ahead or behind schedule they had fallen. At the moment they were behind, and uncomfortably so. Resistance at the Gap had proved stronger than expected, forcing the warfleet to spend valuable minutes in breaking through the screen of enemy ships, minutes which had become hours in the transit.
“With respect to our goal of achieving total surprise: such a result has not been possible. I mean no ill-reflection upon the Circles; our Mages have given of themselves without stinting. Hyperspeed communications among the Adept-worlds were interdicted on schedule as we were promised, and have not yet resumed. Nevertheless—and I
will
remind all of you that I warned the Resurgency of this before!—at least one ship broke through and carried the warning to Prime.”
sus-Airaalin frowned again, remembering how Galcen’s inadequate home-defense forces had been waiting for the warfleet at the dropout point. More delay … the handful of vessels had held off the attack on their planet by more hours, and worse, had kept the jump points out of his hands long enough for couriers from Prime and South Polar to launch and make the jump into hyper.
“We have always counted time as our friend, but with the assault on the Gap it has become in one stroke our enemy. The Circles cannot suppress hyperspeed communications much longer, even if I should call upon them for the ultimate sacrifice, and news of the attack on Galcen Prime is undoubtedly spreading throughout the Adept-worlds at the speed of a fast ship.
“We must, therefore, bring the heart-system under control by whatever means necessary, and carry the attack to the enemy forces while they remain scattered and headless. Divided, they cannot equal the strength of our fleet; but should they ever recover themselves enough to unite against us, I can make no promises concerning our further success.”
The vacuum-tight doors to the observation gallery sighed open to let in a messenger. sus-Airaalin thumbed off the autoscribe and turned away from the viewports to receive the newcomer with proper courtesy.
The messenger saluted. “Admiral, our forces on the ground report that Galcen Prime is now secure, and the major regional centers are coming under control. Fighting is continued but sporadic, and local defenses are weak.”
“Very good. My compliments to our commanders, and to the troopers. Has General Metadi been identified?”
“No word on that, sir.”
“Find him,” ordered sus-Airaalin. “If he’s out of our hands, he’s dangerous. And if somebody tells you he’s dead, see the body for yourself.”
“Yes, sir.”
An alarm bell started ringing, its tocsin running on in counterpoint beneath the annunciator’s repeated warning: “Unknown fighters, inbound … unknown fighters, inbound … unknown fighters …”
The Grand Admiral stiffened.
Metadi
, he thought for an instant, and felt a moment of profound apprehension before the true nature of the attacking force made itself felt to his extended senses. Not Jos Metadi’s troops, but those of the other, greater enemy.
Ransome. The Adept Master. The Breaker of Circles.
Theio syn-Ricte sus-Airaalin unhooked the silver-and-ebony staff from his belt, and felt the unseen fire running up and down its length. There had been no particular happiness for him in smashing through the barrier at the Gap Between Worlds, or in taking out the system ships in Galcen nearspace—but Errec Ransome was an enemy it would be a pleasure to destroy.
“Summon the others,” he told the messenger. “Tell them to meet me in the meditation room. We have work to do.”
 
The passenger compartment of RSF
Naversey
was an awkward place in which to hold a debriefing, especially with the four survivors from
Ebannha
’s boarding craft added to the those already aboard. On the other hand,
Naversey
had air pressure and shipboard gravity, which meant that everyone could dispense with their p-suits and magnetic-soled footgear.
Llannat sat at Lieutenant Vinhalyn’s right, her staff lying across her lap. She’d had to leave the weapon behind for her suited expedition into the Deathwing; she hadn’t realized how much its absence had upset her until she had come back.
I’m going to have to think about that. But not now.
She looked across the central aisle of the passenger compartment at Ensign Tammas Cantrel, seated on the foot end of an acceleration couch. The ensign was a painfully young man, with dark circles under his eyes and lines on his face that had no business being there. A stubble of beard on his jaw made an awkward contrast with what must have once been a prized and carefully tended mustache.
“ … so nobody was answering us on the hi-comms,” he said, “and after a while we decided that if we wanted to make it home we were going to have to use the Deathwing. We were tracing systems on the main engines when you folks showed up.”
“Tracing systems?” said Llannat.
Cantrel nodded. He was holding on to a mug of hot cha’a with both hands as if it were a lifeline. “Engineering by feel, more or less. We knew what a hyperdrive is supposed to do, and we knew—the chief knows, anyway—how the drives on our ships do it. So we were trying to figure out if the Mages got their ships into hyperspace the same way we do; and if they did, we were going to make their engines take us there.”
E‘Patu and Rethiel, the two warrant officers who’d come with
Naversey,
looked at each other. “You know,” said E’Patu, “working blind like could have killed the lot of you.”
“I know,” said Cantrel. He took another swallow of his cha’a. “But even at one-eighth rations we only had a couple of months before we starved to death. I figured this way we could at least die trying.”
“Under the circumstances,” said Lieutenant Vinhalyn, “I think I would have done the same thing.”
Llannat took a deep breath. “I think we still ought to.”
The others—both
Naversey
’s original complement and the boarding party off
Ebannha
—looked at her with varying degrees of surprise. She took a firm grip on her staff and continued.
“There’s a war out there. The Mageworlders have broken through the Net. I don’t know where they were heading—”
“Galcen,” put in Govantic, the data specialist. “I’ll bet it was Galcen. With hi-comms down, they’ve got surprise—and they aren’t going to waste it on the small stuff.”
“A good point,” Vinhalyn said. “Mistress Hyfid?”
“Right,” she said. “With things in the shape they’re in, we can’t just drop out of hyper over Prime and expect the Space Force to be waiting. Not in an unarmed courier. But with the Deathwing, we can fight if we have to.”
“We’d have people from both sides shooting at us,” said Lury, the senior medic. “Not a real good idea.”
“With the Deathwing we could shoot back,” Llannat countered. “And we could bring
Naversey
and the
Pari-
class along for escort.”
“It’d be an interesting job,” said E’Patu. “Dangerous as hell, though. The safe move would be to transfer everybody to
Naversey
and jump for some point closer in.”
“No,” said Llannat. Her persistence was starting to surprise even her; but she was in the grip of a new and pressing certainty. “Not in an unarmed ship when there’s a war going on. We’d get shot to pieces the moment we dropped out of hyper. I say we ought to take the Deathwing.”
Govantic was starting to look interested. “It’d be fun, all right—I’ve only gotten a chance to play with Magebuilt comp systems once before, and that was a ground-based setup that got left behind on Ophel after the War.”
“Archaic Magebuilt battle and navigation systems,” promised Llannat. “More fun than a twelve-hour session of Deathworld in a holovid arcade … and Lieutenant Vinhalyn reads Eraasian. If the old-time Mageworlders put instruction manuals on their ships, he can translate them for us. We won’t be working blind at all.”
 
It was three hours after leaving the Retreat in the aircar that General Ochemet saw the first signs of dirtside fighting. All morning the incongruously bright sky had been laced with the contrails of atmospheric fighters weaving about high above Master Ransome’s low-flying craft, but this was the first time Ochemet had spotted something that he could make out with his bare eyes.
Looking down on the road below, he saw a column of armored fighting vehicles strung out like the beads of a broken necklace. Black smoke poured from their hatches, and here and there in the dirt around them lay small crumpled figures.
A mile or two farther on beyond the wreckage, Ochemet saw another line of armored vehicles approaching from the other direction. He didn’t recognize the design, which meant they weren’t anything the Republic had available on Galcen. The unfamiliar vehicles came on in open skirmishing order, infantry mixed among the armor, making their way at an easy walking pace away from Prime.
The Mageworlders have got the cities
, Ochemet realized.
Now they’re moving out to secure the countryside
.
It wasn’t going to be hard. He didn’t like the thought, but he knew it was true. Galcen had always relied on the Space Force for defense, and the Space Force had counted on the efficiency of the Republic’s hyperspace communications, the links and relays that transferred messages in seconds between the outplanets and the Central Worlds. That wide-spread, multiply redundant system had been the cornerstone of all their strategic planning—a technical achievement that allowed the Space Force to patrol a vast collection of worlds and still muster in strength at a trouble spot.
We never counted on losing hi-comms
, Ochemet thought unhappily. Nobody in the high command had ever devised a theoretical way to break a system that had so many relay stations and backups and alternate routing patterns. Eventually, the idea had been given up as impossible. But the Mageworlders had somehow managed to do it.
If we still had our communications grid working, the fleets from Khesat and Wrysten would have shown up last night sometime, and the out-sector forces would be rolling in right about now.
Instead, Galcen’s in flames and nobody outside the system knows it.
He looked again at the advancing column of Mageworlds fighting vehicles. The aircar had to be plainly visible from the ground; they were well out of the mountains, with nothing for a backdrop but the clear blue sky.
“Why aren’t they shooting at us?” Ochemet wondered aloud.
Ransome didn’t bother turning his head. “They aren’t shooting at us because they aren’t seeing us. Be quiet. I need to concentrate.”
They flew on toward Prime. The sun climbed in the sky, and the columns of smoke on the horizon grew closer.
 
Grand Admiral Theio syn-Ricte sus-Airaalin knelt in the quiet of the meditation room, among the other eight of his Circle. Like them, he wore the mask and the hooded robe, hiding his uniform and his badges of rank. In this one compartment of the great flagship, outside power and position no longer mattered. sus-Airaalin had been First of his Circle long before the Resurgency found him and made him the commander of their secret warfleet.
Before military office and authority had come to him, his lifelong struggle had been solely to keep the heritage of the Circles alive. He’d made enemies enough that way, those who didn’t care if they wore chains as long as their beds were soft—and others who would have turned the broken Circles into mere political tools, using the Mages as spies and assassins, no better than Adepts.

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