The Star King (29 page)

The massive doors to the dining hall slammed open.
"Ajha, ajha!"
Exclamations of shock and surprise preceded them into the enormous chamber, where Joren awaited them. Music hushed. Plates crashed to the floor.

Rom released Jas and walked to his brother-in-law.

"Is it true?" Joren demanded.

"Yes. The orbital city, the mining colonies, all gone."

There were gasps and muttered prayers.

Rom raised his voice. "It was deliberate, premeditated."

Joren recoiled, as if the concept was too grotesque to contemplate. "Go on."

"Sharron used the
Tjhu'nami
to cloak his attack."

"And now he's dead."

"Yes," Rom said. "The surviving ships jumped to hyperspace."

Joren swore under his breath. "Now we've lost them."

"No, we haven't, my lord," a new voice said.

Intrigued, Jas glanced over her shoulder. Gann stepped past. Muffin behind him. They looked rumpled and worn out. Gann's forehead was bruised, and he was favoring his right ankle. Unconsciously she pressed her palm to her sore stomach.

Gann straightened under Joren's scrutiny. "Gann of the
Quillie,
my lord, inbound from Karma Prime to see Rom B'kah."

"You had help?" Joren prompted.

"Yes. A cruiser. Class-six. They picked up a distress call from one of the mining colonies, as we did, and came straightaway. We both detected the enemy vessels as they transmitted coordinates to make their jump. Had but seconds to decide—the class-six was the better ship to track them out of the system, so I brought the
Quillie
here. We came in as the battle was under way."

"So the cruiser's trailing them?" Joren asked;

"Yes, my lord."

Rom drummed his fingers on his upper arms. "A class-six. I wonder who they are. Merchants, you suppose?"

"No.
Vash Nadah."
Gann appeared uneasy. "Rom, it was a B'kah ship."

Chapter Nineteen

Visibly shaken, Rom stepped toward the exit. "We shall discuss this privately." Joren, Gann, and Muffin trailed him, along with several guards. Jas hung back for a heartbeat. Di and the other women appeared stricken, but none seemed remotely interested in following. In that moment, the culture gap between them seemed enormous. She ran into the corridor as Rom spun around, clearly looking for her.

He waited until she caught up. "We have fought side by side since the beginning. We won't stop now." Pointedly, he settled her hand over the crook of his arm and resumed his long strides.

They entered a room with two conference tables arranged in concentric circles. Then the visiting diplomats—those who had been lucky enough to be in the palace and not the space-city—filed in, their shoulders bowed as if they bore lead weights. Soon the room was filled to overflowing. Jas edged toward a window to inhale fresh air. The pale blue sky was streaked with contrails. Ships that had weathered the storm in underground hangers were soaring beyond the atmosphere to view the aftermath of the attack, while communications personnel hunted for signals sent back from the B'kah ship trailing the surviving attackers.

The day wore on. After a brief visit with the Dars' surgeon to treat her reinjured abdomen, Jas returned to the conference room.

Rom brooded, sitting by her side, while officials who ran palace intelligence came and went, asking them questions and entering the data in their handheld computers. Some gazed at her with a mixture of curiosity and awe. News of her decisive role in the battle had spread.

"Lord Dar, sir!" A strapping young man entered the conference room, gripping a starfighter pilot helmet in his hands. He bowed in front of Joren. "Wing Commander Ben e'Dar requests permission to speak."

"Proceed," Joren said.

"Our tests indicate that antimatter detonations indeed destroyed the city."

Several gasps emanated from the crowd.

"An entire city." Joren peered around the room. "And dozens of ships carrying respected members of our Great Council. All killed in a cowardly terrorist attack carried out with banned weaponry." Joren glanced at Rom. Jas saw a silent signal pass between them. Then Rom nodded curtly and addressed the group.

"Sharron vowed he'd bring his war to the
Vash
home-worlds. And he has. Yes, he is now dead. But his people will carry out his wish to destroy us all."

The diplomats and surviving Council members began to murmur among themselves. Joren silenced them. "They are more ruthless and more relentless than we ever grasped. It is time we paid heed to Romlijhian's warning—one he gave us twenty years ago. This man owes us nothing. This man has every right to leave us to our closed-mindedness, our stubbornness in not acting intelligently to end such an appalling threat. But he has not."

Joren's black-and-gold tunic shimmered as he faced Rom. "You are the heir of the exalted Romjha, our light in the dark. We await your orders, Lord B'kah." He fell to one knee and bowed his head. One by one, others, though not all, followed suit.

Jas gripped Rom's warm hand. She expected him to rise, but he remained seated for taut moments, twining his fingers with hers, as if letting go indicated his acceptance of the leadership role Joren offered. A
choice. He said he'd have to make a choice.
She stared at their clasped hands, then shifted her gaze to the men crouching humbly and expectantly before Rom.

This was his true calling, she acknowledged inwardly, his birthright. Her relationship with him paled in comparison to this galactic Pearl Harbor, to these people and their inexorable pull on him. Rom was merely her lover, but he was their king. And they had every right to take him from her. She forced open her grip on his fingers.

Rom brought his mouth to her ear. "It is time to offer the gauntlet once more. Pray this time they take it." He stood, proud and tall. "Lord Dar—"

"One moment, my lord," the young pilot said, this time addressing Rom. He was gripping his helmet so hard that his knuckles were white. "I have news of the B'kah cruiser. They followed the enemy out of hyper-space, then to what we think is their center of operations. Their arsenal there—it boggles the mind."

"Where is it? Do they know?"

"Yes, sir. Balkanor."

"Balkanor," Rom said on a harsh exhalation. Jas looked at his face anxiously. What he'd feared most had happened: the years had allowed Sharron to transform Balkanor into a womb of illegal weaponry. "What of the cruiser?"

The pilot lifted his chin. "The-signal was lost. We haven't been able to raise them since. I... we think the ship was destroyed, my lord."

There was a small commotion near the doorway. Then the group parted for Di, tight-faced and cloaked in an uncharacteristically somber garment. Her chest was rising and falling rapidly. "Romlijhian, a call came for you on the private channel." Her voice shook, "It's Father. He's summoned you to the Wheel."

* * *

From the viewport in the luxurious Dar cruiser, Jas could see their destination. Lit from within, the tiny disk rotated slowly, like a lost toy among the stars. But as they neared the Wheel, it grew in size until it was staggeringly huge. A million winking lights; spokes as wide and tall as the Empire State Building. It was a marvel of construction, even for a society that had achieved light-speed space travel eons ago. "Five thousand years old ... incredible." "Much history has transpired here," Rom said, his arms snug around her waist. She set down her mug of steaming
tock
and leaned back into his embrace. They watched in exhausted silence until their cruiser docked

in one of the thousands of bays. They'd been traveling for three days, sleeping little while they prepared the address Rom hoped to deliver to the Great Council— and his father.

The elder B'kah had not yet contacted Rom during their journey to council headquarters, nor forwarded any messages other than the mysterious summons he had sent Di. What pressure Rom must be feeling, Jas thought, not knowing whether his father had brought him here to laud him or humiliate him. All she knew was that the tyrant had better not cross her path, unless he wanted to hear how she regarded his treatment of his son.

The cruiser shuddered, then stilled. She tried to sound lighthearted. "Well, this is it. We're here."

Rom rested his hands on her shoulders, turning her to face him. Long, silent moments slipped by as he observed her somberly. She came up on her toes to kiss him lightly. "A grain of salt for your thoughts," she coaxed.

He seemed to choose his words carefully. "I have given much thought to us—to our shared vision, and to why you returned to me. The Great Mother gave us this time together"—his fingertip traced her lower lip—"not for love, or the happiness you have brought me in such abundance, but to light my path to the destiny She has chosen for me."

The hairs on the back of Jas's neck tingled. "You're scaring me," she whispered.

His pupils darkened within his pale gold irises, and he smoothed both palms over her hair, slowly and with care, as if memorizing her. "Your Earth world with its riches brought me back from the frontier. Then you were captured by the Family of the New Day, giving me the chance to rescue you and discover that Sharron was still alive. Then your sickness led me back to the fold of my family—something I swore I'd never do. Now we are here. The Wheel, home of the Great Council."

She sagged against him. He rested his chin on her head.

"By coming back to me, you have allowed me this chance to convince the
Vash Nadah
to mobilize for war and defeat the revolution. And perhaps"—his voice tightened—"the opportunity to reconcile with my father. But Jasmine, I fear that since your task is complete, you will leave, as you did before. Even if it is not of your own choice."

She reared back, her chin jutting high. "Magic may have brought me to you, or destiny—or God. But love is why I stayed. Do you understand that? I love you. I will never leave.
Never."

His gaze softened with his love for her, blunting the anguish she saw in his golden eyes. He opened his mouth to speak.

"Brother, the Council awaits you in the great hall," Joren interrupted, walking toward them.

Jas slid her hand down the side of Rom's face, over his cheekbone and the faint prickles of his beard. "We've worked on this speech long and hard. It's terrific. I'll be there, listening, praying." She swallowed. "You'll be wonderful."

He kissed her on the forehead, then her lips, before he took her by the hand. They followed Joren out of the cruiser and into the rather intimidating confines of the Wheel. Gann and Muffin brought up the rear, overtly protective in the way they scanned the crowd. Jas didn't

doubt either man would hesitate to beat to a pulp anyone who tried to hurt Rom.

Several dignitaries met them on the way, taking Joren and Rom with them, as she'd been told to expect. The men had been assigned seating near the immense stage. Had she been Rom's legal wife, she would have sat at his side. She thought of Di, who had stayed behind, torn between her religion's dictates against war and the necessity she now saw for it. For her, the ageless terror of seeing loved ones killed in battle, even if their deaths were to save them all, had left her all but paralyzed.

Jas, flanked by Gann and Muffin, entered the anteroom of the Great Council Hall. People turned to stare at them. What an odd sight they must make, she thought wryly, a woman with peculiar black hair and fair skin escorted by two hulking men dressed like escapees from smugglers' prison. As if reading her thoughts, Gann kept his hand lightly and reassuringly under the crook of her arm. His voice was gentle. "Are you doing all right?"

Her stomach squeezed tight. "Yeah. How about you?"

"More exhausted than after a match of Bajha with B'kah." She smiled at his remark. "In here," he said. They found seats in the rear of the darkened auditorium. He helped her tune a translator imbedded in a console in front of her so she could listen to Rom's Siennan words in Basic, in which she was far more fluent.

Eight massive thrones graced the right side of the stage. From the left, eight immaculately robed older men marched to the chairs. The tall, broad-shouldered gentleman who led them had the confident stance of a warrior, a familiar lean gait. Jas's heart skipped to a stop.

Rom's father.

Though his facial features weren't similar—Rom must resemble his mother—his body and that of his son's were nearly identical. Fascinated, she watched a silver-trimmed indigo cape billow around the man's long legs as he sat. The other seven followed, dominolike, in what Jas guessed was an order based on family ranking. The hiss of applause began at the front of the immense hall, spreading slowly to the rear.

Then Rom took the stage, walking resolutely to a crystal lectern. Seeking eye contact from those within the audience, he gripped the podium, his knuckles white—not with anxiety, Jas thought, but with passion. This was the opportunity he'd wished for so fervently twenty years ago and never achieved: the chance to convince the stubborn, peace-loving
Vash Nddah
to go to war.

"I am Romlijhian B'kah," he announced. He inclined his head toward the eight leaders, then faced the audience. "I have been invited to address you because I have experience with a revolution begun by a group called the Family of the New Day." His self-assured voice boomed, filling the hall with its power. "Five standard days ago, the Dar homeworld was suddenly and deliberately attacked by these revolutionaries. They annihilated a space-city, home to forty thousand, as well as five mining colonies, several honored members of this Great Council, and countless assembly politicians and diplomats. Then, without provocation, the Family of the New Day fired upon and destroyed a class-six cruiser in the B'kah fleet." His hands opened. "We are in grave danger."

Exhaling, he paced across the stage. "To fully comprehend that danger, the future we face if we do not take action, we must try to understand our turbulent past. Not

simply in the manner in which we learned Trade History as youngsters, but with a more critical eye." He clasped his hands behind his back and faced them. As he recounted the Dark Years preceding the Great War, Jas fell fully under his spell, barely breathing when he described in sickening detail the outcome of massive antimatter weaponry detonations.

His voice was low and earnest. "It is difficult to imagine a war so terrible, comprised of acts so heinous, that its psychological aftermath impelled warriors bred for battle to lay down their weapons . . . forever. But that they did. 'Peace for all the time,' they decreed, and incorporated that covenant into our holiest of documents, the Treatise of Trade ... so that we would never forget. But—I ask you—did they honestly intend that we maintain that peace in the face of evil?
At any cost
?"