The Test
Secondary Iral Tapperhaven ran the Military Strategy class at DMA. Tall and lean, with dark hair cut at jaw length, she spent most of the classes listening as students proposed invasion scenarios by ESComm and countermeasures for ISC.
The walls of the room looked metallic right now, gold and ribbed, but their holoscreens could show whatever Tapperhaven wanted. Soz and the other cadets sat in VR chairs around a glossy oval table, some of them reclined with visors over their eyes, others like Soz with their visors up, operating in “real” space. She was the only novice.
In Dalvador, Soz hadn’t had a referent to judge her suitability as a cadet. Doing well on exams told her nothing about living, learning, and working with other students. These were the top of the crop, those candidates the J-Force believed would make the best Jagernauts out of the thousands who applied to DMA and the few hundred who attended. It hadn’t taken Soz long to see she fit here, and fit well. She no longer felt intimidated.
She was in her element.
Tapperhaven was proposing a new scenario. “The Traders kill both Dyad Keys. The Kyle web fails. ISC loses communications. The Traders launch a simultaneous attack against several major population and military sites in the Imperialate. With crippled communications, how will ISC respond?”
Soz stiffened, and her hand jerked on the table. Tapperhaven had just proposed that the Traders murdered two members of her family: Kurj, the Military Key to the Dyad; and her Aunt Dyhianna, the Assembly Key.
Together, the Dyad powered the Kyle web, Kurj coordinating with ISC and Dyhianna with the government.
“Simulation on channel two,” Tapperhaven said. “Activate.”
Breathing deeply, Soz lowered the visor over her eyes and started the protocol. She didn’t yet have the biomech web in her body that would connect her brain to exterior networks, so the simulation appeared only as a three-dimensional holovid on the inside of her visor. It was extraordinarily realistic, but she remained “outside” rather than experiencing it as reality.
If and when Soz progressed to her third year, the J-Force would begin the complex process of augmentation that would turn her into a cybernetic warrior, enhancing her strength, speed, and reflexes. It took several years for a cadet to receive full augmentation and learn to use it properly. Not everyone managed; some washed out of the academy at that stage, when their bodies rejected the augmentations. Soz’s physical exams said she would have no problem, but such tests were never perfect.
For now, she had to be content with a holovid. The simulation placed her in a control chair at the end of a robot arm in the War Room onboard the Orbiter space station that served as one of several ISC command centers. The military spread its centers throughout the Imperialate so that no single strike could cripple the ISC command structure. As an additional safeguard, the Orbiter traveled, never staying in any particular volume of space.
The robot arm could carry Soz anywhere within the War Room. Muted clanks came from other robot arms as they ferried operators through the amphitheater. Below her, hundreds of consoles hummed and flashed with the work of telops, the telepathic operators who linked directly into the Kyle web. Pages hurried from station to station, running errands. It all served as an ISC nerve center, a central node in the vast web that extended through distances measured in light-years.
Kurj sat in a command chair far overhead. It hung like a blocky throne in the Star Dome, which showed a holographic view of space. The gold mesh that encased Kurj’s body linked to sockets in his ankles, wrists, spine, and neck. Filaments threaded into his head as well. Add to that his metallic skin, hair, and eyes, and he looked more machine than man, huge and foreboding above the War Room. According to the specs rolling across Soz’s
display, he was coordinating a flood of data from all over the Imperialate, millions of worlds, habitats, outposts, and ships.
Kurj suddenly vanished from the chair. Alarms blared, aides ran, and consoles blazed with warnings throughout the amphitheater. According to the glyphs at the bottom of Soz’s display, the Imperator had just died.
A new message appeared: Page from Secondary Tapperhaven.
Puzzled, Soz blinked twice, responding to the summons.
Tapperhaven’s voice came over the audio prong in Soz’s ear. “Cadet Valdoria, we’re altering your feed for the simulation.”
Odd. Soz had thought all cadets were supposed to receive the same program. Intrigued, she said, “Understood.”
The sim went dark. Then it lightened again. After an instant of disorientation, she realized her view had changed; now she was looking down on the War Room from a higher vantage point. Robot arms still swung through the amphitheater below, but starlight bathed her up here.
Starlight?
Soz looked up. The Star Dome arched only a few meters above her. Incredibly, she was in the command Chair for the War Room. If the Traders had destroyed the Dyad, two other members of the Ruby Dynasty would have to form a new one. It sobered Soz; she and Althor were the only ones with direct military knowledge, and neither of them had anywhere near the experience to command ISC. Nevertheless, if Kurj died, one of them would become the Military Key. The Imperator.
If she was the Imperator in this sim, who was the Ruby Pharaoh? Her mother stood next in line. Roca had prepared her entire life for that position; should the current Dyad fall, Roca could immediately assume her duties as the Key to the Assembly. The same wasn’t true for Soz or Althor. If the military title came to Soz now, she would defer command of ISC to the admirals, generals, and primaries who knew the job. It was the only rational choice. But she would remain Imperator: no one but a Rhon psion could act as the Key in the star-spanning mesh that held together the Imperialate. If anyone with less mental strength than a Rhon psion entered the Dyad, it would kill them.
However, Soz couldn’t act as a Key just by sitting in a command chair.
She had to join the Dyad powerlink that powered the web. To do so, she would have to enter one of the Locks, mechanisms that had survived for five millennia, since the Ruby Empire. No one in these modern times could say how the Locks operated; that knowledge had been lost in the Dark Ages after the fall of the empire, and modern science had yet to unravel the secrets of the ancient technology. This much they knew: the Locks let them access Kyle space, a universe outside of their own.
Tapperhaven spoke in her ear. “The simulation is based on interviews with Imperator Skolia about his work in the War Room. The assumption is that you have assumed command but are not yet a Dyad Key.”
“Understood,” Soz said. It limited her options. A simulation couldn’t injure her, but the J-Force techs who created this scenario would mimic reality to their best ability, even using wireless links to access her brain, recreating the experience as accurately as they could manage given that none of them had ever been a Rhon psion installed in the War Room. According to the sim, she had linked to the Chair using an internal biomech web that in real life she lacked. That completed the sum total of her information about this scenario; she was otherwise going into this cold.
Time to get down to business.
Primary Node, respond, she thought—and then jumped as her own amplified thought reverberated in her mind.
The throne’s answer rumbled. ATTENDING.
Whoa. The sensation of power felt so authentic, she vibrated.
What is the situation in the War Room? she asked.
OBSERVE. Statistics flooded her mind too fast to absorb.
Sort, she thought. Prioritize. List the worst failures first. The flood eased, but it still came too fast for her to grasp anything concrete. A river of glyphs poured across her display, taking up all the room. A better way had to exist to process this. Do you have sorting routines created by Imperator Skolia?
NO.
That didn’t fit the Kurj she knew. He was obsessive about putting the universe into precise order. Did he use any?
DEFINE ′HE′ IN THIS CONTEXT.
Imperator Skolia.
YOU ARE IMPERATOR SKOLIA.
Ah. The late Kurj Skolia.
SORTING ROUTINES IMPLEMENTED.
The deluge suddenly transformed into a grid extending in every direction. Each bar contained data about the War Room. Many glowed red, warning of system failures.
Soz scanned the bars, able to read them much more easily than the previous flood. She quickly located the most urgent problems; both the War Room environmental system and a SCAD defense node for a distant battalion were failing due to disruptions in power caused by the loss of links in the Kyle web.
She had too little time to fix both problems; she would have to let one fail. If the SCAD system collapsed, it would affect several battle cruisers. Communications were limping along well enough that the War Room could send vital information to the cruisers, in this case, intelligence about a Trader unit approaching them. But without their SCAD defenses, the cruisers would lose a tactical advantage, putting them at risk. If the environmental system here failed, the temperature in the War Room would become uncomfortable, the air stale, the working conditions difficult.
The decision seemed obvious: fix the SCAD. But she hesitated. The bars turned a deeper red, warning that the failures had begun. She had to act now; otherwise both systems would collapse.
Fix environment, she said.
COMMAND TOO UNSPECIFIC.
Soz blinked the holicon of an arrow over to a lurid red bar in the grid. Make this green.
ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROLS FOR WAR ROOM REPAIRED. The bar turned green at the same time that the red bar representing the SCAD system vanished, leaving a ragged gap in the grid.
“Damn,” Soz muttered.
She spent the next hour working with the War Room telops to repair systems and contain the chaos. Eventually they brought the SCAD system back up and contacted the cruisers. Two had survived the attack, but the
Traders had destroyed the third. Soz gritted her teeth; if this had been real, she would have just killed off hundreds of personnel and destroyed a major ISC command ship.
The display faded into a wash of gold. Tapperhaven’s voice came over the main channel that all the cadets received. “Sim completed. Surface.”
Surface. Like submerged vehicles coming up out of the water. Soz smiled wryly. That was apt. She pushed back her visor and blinked in the lights of the VR room. The other cadets were doing the same, lifting visors, rubbing their eyes. Although she didn’t know who had played what role in the sim, she could guess based on the personalities and behavior of the sim personnel.
The cadets shifted around in their seats, stretching, rubbing stiff muscles. A murmur of conversation started. Apex Colormock, a fourth-year student, said, “What the hell idiot set up that sim to fix the environmental controls first?”
Soz gritted her teeth. Great.
Another cadet laughed tiredly. “You better hope it wasn’t any instructor watching this session, Apex.”
Soz wished the instructors had done it. Serve Apex right for calling them idiots. Unfortunately she was the idiot.
“We’re running late,” Tapperhaven said. “Go over a download of the session tonight, and tomorrow we’ll do the analysis.”
Relief showed on more than one face that they wouldn’t have to dissect their performance now. Soz felt only frustration. That decision had made sense. It still did. She was convinced of that even if no one else thought so.
As the cadets filed out of the room, Tapperhaven discreetly motioned for her to remain. Soz went through her holobook as if she were searching for something. It was pride; she didn’t want anyone to know Tapperhaven wanted her to stay behind. At least none of the others seemed to realize Soz had made the environment decision.
After everyone else left, Tapperhaven said, “Wait here.” She crossed to a door at the back of the room and touched a panel. The door slid to the side—and Tapperhaven left.
Soz blinked. What was going on?
Kurj came through the doorway.
Ah, hell. Soz wanted to melt into the floor. She saluted instead, clenching her fists and smacking her wrists together as she raised her arms straight out from her body.
He returned her salute. “At ease, Cadet.”
“Thank you, sir.” Soz lowered her arms, but she didn’t feel the least bit at ease.
Kurj went to the head of the table and stood with his muscular arms crossed, studying her, the gold shields over his eyes. It never stopped amazing Soz that he could so resemble their mother, yet look so hard and unyielding. His square-jawed face and regular features reminded her of Althor and Kelric, but with a harsh cast that neither they nor their mother possessed.
“Why the environmental system?” he asked.
Soz met his gaze. “If it went out, it would have affected the performance of every person working in the War Room.”
His voice cooled. “It certainly affected the performance of the crew on the battle cruiser when the Traders blew them up.”
Soz winced. “Yes, sir.” After a pause, she said, “Permission to ask a question.”
“Go ahead.”
“Have you run that scenario with anyone else as Imperator?”
“I’ve done it myself.” His shielded eyes gave away nothing. “Althor has also. Three other cadets this year.”
“What did you each do?”
“We all fixed the SCAD, except one person, who didn’t make the decision soon enough to save either system.”
“Did I lose more personnel?”
He spoke evenly. “I lost thirty-three soldiers. You lost three hundred six.”
Gods. She hadn’t expected that. “What about the others?”
For a long moment he didn’t answer. Just when Soz felt certain he wouldn’t respond, he said, “Althor lost three hundred twenty-four. The other cadets all lost more than four hundred. The one who didn’t fix either system lost over a thousand.”
“Did you do it as a cadet?”
Kurj shook his head. “The first time was a few years ago.”
No wonder he had done so well. He came to it with decades more experience. Compared to cadets at her level, she had lost fewer personnel. “I was right to fix the environmental system.”
Kurj frowned. “Or lucky.”
Her good mood faded. It wasn’t luck. He knew that. She couldn’t say that to her CO, though, so she just looked at him.
To her unmitigated surprise, Kurj smiled, his teeth white against his metallic skin. “If looks could incinerate, I would be ashes right now.”
Seeing him drop his guard startled her more than anything else he could have done. “My apologies, sir.”
Kurj pushed his hand across his close-cropped curls. “The problem, Soz, is that to lead well you have to know how to lose. You can’t always win. You can’t always be right. You lost over three hundred people in that sim, and one of our most powerful cruisers. When you go out into real combat, real people will die.”
“I appreciate that, sir.”
“No. You don’t. You think you do, but you’ve never really been tried.” He came around the table to her. “You’re flying through DMA faster than any cadet in decades. Later today Tapperhaven will tell you that we’re going to accelerate your biomech surgery. If you’re willing, we’ll start the operations in a few weeks.”
Her excitement leapt. “Sir! Yes, sir! You won’t regret it.”
“I hope not.” Quietly he said, “Because I’m not sure you’re ready.”
Would he never be satisfied? “What more do I have to do to prove myself?”
“Survive when you aren’t right. Lead after you fail. It is a far more dif ficult task.”
Soz had no answer for that. She would do what she could, always, regardless of whether or not she won. And he was wrong if he thought she had never lost. She had already failed her family. To come here and be his heir, she had given up her home and turned her back on the father who had loved her unconditionally all her life. Until now. What else did Kurj want her to lose? The whole damn war, which Skolia supposedly wasn’t fighting
anyway, because it had never been declared, but which nevertheless killed thousands of soldiers every year?
Kurj was watching her face. She felt his mind nudge hers, but she kept her mental barriers strong.
“You want to fight the Traders,” he said.
“Yes, sir.” Why else would she be here?
“Kill them.”
“If necessary.”
In a low voice he said, “Obliterate them.”
“I just want to defend my people.”
He spoke softly. “The day will come, Soz, when you’ll want to wipe the universe clean of any trace the Aristos ever existed, when you’ll want to see every one of them die a long, painful death.”
Soz stared at him. Never had he revealed so much of what lay behind that formidable metal surface he presented to the public.
“When that day comes,” Kurj said, “I need to know I can trust your judgment. I need to know that the cocksure Jagernaut who obliterated the competition at DMA will act like an officer and not a juggernaut bent on revenge.”
Soz didn’t know where to put this. She had no referent to understand. “I will always act in the best interests of ISC. Personal revenge has no place in my duties.”
“You say that now.” Bitterness edged his voice. “We never stop paying the price. You, me, Althor, all the Rhon. You’ve spent your life in a bucolic paradise. But that is over. You are an Imperial Heir. Skolia will take everything you have, tear you up, spit you out, and leave you crumpled, but you have to drag yourself up and try again. No one else can do it. If we don’t serve as Keys, the Imperialate will fall.” His words ground out. “You hate that I’ve pitted you and Althor against each other. Well, know this: only a handful of Rhon psions stand between trillions of people and enslavement by the Traders. Learn that. Live it. Breathe it. Then come back and tell me that you’re ready to be my heir.”
Her anger quieted. “I can’t know what you’ve endured. I can only guess. But I’ll do my best not to fail.”
He spoke tiredly. “It’s all that any of us can do.”
Soz hoped her best would be enough.
“Please.” Eldrinson whispered in the darkness, lying on the pallet. He felt Vitarex’s presence in the tent. The Aristo spent hours here, like a healer sitting vigil, except no sane healer would crave the agony of his patient.
“You can’t take me when you leave here.” Eldrinson spoke past the pain that had been his companion now for days. He no longer knew how many seizures he had suffered or what additional damage they had done to his legs. “Let me die.”
Vitarex answered from deeper in the tent. “I’ve no wish to see you die. I would take you with me if I could. But I cannot.” Frustration darkened his voice. “I can do nothing until the ODS stops all this extra activity of theirs.”
Eldrinson’s pulse leapt. ODS? Vitarex would assume the acronym had no meaning to his captive. But he knew. Orbital Defense System. ISC was searching for him. He said nothing, schooling his face to impassivity, knowing how close he skimmed to the edge of discovery.
A rustle came from across the tent. “Come,” Vitarex said.
The entrance flap scraped open and footsteps entered. Eldrinson picked up dismay from a familiar mind, the young man who served as a valet and cook, the husband of the woman who tended him. From the crinkling of cloth, Eldrinson guessed the man was bowing to Vitarex.
“My honor at your presence, Lord Vitarex,” the man said.
“Indeed,” Vitarex said. “Go fetch the men who helped me capture this man. Have them bring his belongings.”
“Yes, sir.” More footsteps, and the flap rustled again.
For a time Eldrinson lay, turning his concentration inward to help him deal with the pain. His world had narrowed to the surges of agony. After a while he became aware that Vitarex was speaking with someone else.
“ … anything else in his bags?” Vitarex asked.
“Just his pipe,” a man said.
“Ah, well. It is probably wishful thinking on my part.” Vitarex
sounded as if he were talking to himself. “The severity of his injuries probably makes him seem like a more powerful psion than he actually is.”
“Sir?” the other man asked.
“It is nothing,” Vitarex said. “You may go.”
“Do you want to look at his pipe?”
“No. That won’t be necessary.”
More footsteps. As the flap crinkled, Vitarex said, “Ah, why not? Bring me his pipe. I might as well take a look.”
“Very well, sir.” The other man sounded as if he had almost made it out of the tent.
Foreboding grew in Eldrinson. Pipe? He didn’t smoke. The man could mean an arrow, but a native wouldn’t call it a pipe. Besides, he hadn’t brought a bow and arrows.
Then, suddenly, he knew what they meant. Not pipe.
His air syringe.
Gods almighty! He had to distract Vitarex before the Aristo saw the syringe. Eldrinson groaned, which took no acting.
Footsteps padded across the carpet and disk mail clinked. A hand brushed the tangled hair back from Eldrinson’s face. “Would you like something to eat?” Vitarex asked. “Drink? Anything?”
“No.” What would turn Vitarex’s attention from the “pipe”? The Aristo was fastidious to the point of obsession. He had his servants bathe Eldrinson far more than any dying man would need.
“I feel ill,” Eldrinson said. “I think—my last meal—I can’t hold it.”
“Wait.” Vitarex sounded alarmed. “I will have someone bring a pot and washcloth. No, I’ll go myself.” His mail clinked and his footsteps receded. Eldrinson breathed out in relief; he hadn’t thought the Aristo would want to see him vomit. Vitarex would be gone when the warrior returned with the syringe. Eldrinson could drag himself over, take the syringe, call Roca, and then hide the evidence.
Someone tapped at the tent. Vitarex’s footsteps paused and he said, “Come.”
The man from before spoke. “Here are his bags, milord.”
NO! Just a few more moments and Vitarex would have been gone.
“Very well,” Vitarex said. “Show me the pipe.”
Eldrinson groaned loudly and began to choke.
Vitarex swore in Highton, the Aristo language. The oaths weren’t part of the Highton that Eldrinson had learned from his tutors, but he recognized them anyway. Roca, in one of her more playful moods, had taught him how to cuss in ten offworld tongues.
Vitarex spoke fast. “I will look at the tube later. Right now I need a wash—” The sudden cessation of his words left a gaping silence.
“Lord Vitarex?” the warrior asked.
“Well, well,” the Aristo murmured. “It’s an ISC-issue medical air syringe. Top of the line.”
Eldrinson closed his eyes, a useless habit since he couldn’t see anyway. It didn’t matter. The game was over.
“An interesting development.” Vitarex’s footsteps came back to the pallet. “You still planning to be sick?”
Eldrinson said nothing. What was the use? The less he spoke, the less he could reveal.
Vitarex’s mail creaked as he knelt. “And why, my dear rustic farmer, would you have a nanomed-enhanced syringe issued by the Imperial Space Command of Skolia? Hmmm?”
“The healers at the port gave it to me.”
“Did they now?”
“Yes.”
“I could twist your legs to make you tell me the truth.” Vitarex spoke in a deceptively soft voice. “But then, if pain drove you to reveal your secrets, you would have done that already, Shannar. Or should I say Prince Whatever? Perhaps you are even the Dalvador Bard, the man who married Roca Skolia. Tell me, how is she in bed? Do you like her—”
“Silence!” The shout tore out of Eldrinson.
“So,” Vitarex murmured. “You don’t like that. I wonder why that might be?”
Sweat trickled down Eldrinson’s neck. He answered in the dialect of an uneducated Lyshrioli farmer. “It is wrong to speak of the daughter of the gods that way.”
“What gods?” Vitarex sounded amused.
“The sun gods. Valdor and Aldan.”
“How about the Assembly Heir, hmmm? Or the Foreign Affairs Councilor of the Assembly? Or a Ruby queen, eh? How would her consort have me speak of her?”
Eldrinson felt as if he were sinking in quicksand.
He expected the Aristo to gloat more, but Vitarex moved instead, standing, it sounded like, from the clinks of his mail. He spoke briskly, apparently to the other man. “I have what I came for. I will be leaving as soon as I verify his identity. It is too dangerous to risk further operations here.”
“You are returning to Hollina?” the Tyroll man asked. “Shall we prepare to ride?”
Eldrinson wondered how this warrior could serve a monster who kept a dying, shattered man in his tent.
“Prepare as you need,” Vitarex muttered. “I will leave as soon as the next window opens in the ODS.”
Eldrinson knew what he had to do, then. He could never let Vitarex take him. He had to finish what the Aristo had started when he shot the bluff.
Somehow, he had to die.
“I’ll go alone if I must.” Shannon’s voice shook with his intensity. “But I can’t storm an entire camp alone.” He willed the Elder to hear his need. “They will do worse than kill my father. They will torture him for the rest of his life. They will enslave my people. Your people. All of us. I swear that what I say is true. I must go for my father. I can’t do it alone.”
He sat astride Moonglaze facing the Elder, with other Archers gathered around him. They listened without comment, their ethereally beautiful faces cool and unmoved, or so it seemed to him.
“Please,” Shannon said. “Help me.”
They watched him with their ancient gazes.
Shannon was dying inside. He would go for his father. Today. Tarlin had sped on to Dalvador, riding hard for help. Something had to be wrong with the ISC detection methods. He had turned off the jammer, but no one had found either him or his father. It might be that no one was looking for
him, but they would never let his father suffer this way. Whatever hid the Aristo also hid his father.
Tarlin had told him the ugly truth. His father’s chances of survival were small, probably impossible. He didn’t understand how an Aristo could have violated their home, their haven, but it had happened. What if Vitarex took his father offworld? Shannon couldn’t wait for help, not even a few hours. But if he went in alone to the Aristo’s camp, they would surely capture him. He desperately needed help.
The Archers wouldn’t break their centuries of seclusion for him. Why should they? This was his fight. They had no way to comprehend what it would mean if the Aristos captured members of the Ruby Dynasty, that the Traders would conquer Skolia, including Lyshriol. The lovely Blue Dale Archers would become slaves.
Motion came from behind the rows of the mounted Archers facing him. The lines parted and a rider rode her lyrine forward.
Varielle.
She stopped in front of Shannon. “I will ride with you.”
His voice caught. “Thank you.”
“And I.” Another rider came forward. Elarion.
“And I.” Tharon joined them.
The Elder considered them. “You would go with this man who is not of our tribe.”
Varielle’s gaze never wavered. “Yes.”
“Yes,” Elarion said.
“Yes,” Tharon answered.
For a long moment the Elder studied them. Then she turned back to Shannon. “Three of my most trusted riders choose your quest.”
“They honor me.” He waited, his heart beating hard.
Finally she said, “I give my answer now as well.”
Shannon knew if she refused him, none of the others would ride. With only four of them, he didn’t think they could succeed. But he had to try. Gods forgive him if he ended up causing the deaths of these three who had become his friends.
The Elder said no more, she just sat on her lyrine, until finally his heart sank. She had refused him.
Then she spurred her mount forward. “I will ride with you, Shannon of Dalvador.”
His voice caught. “Thank you.”
She spoke quietly. “You have dealt well with us. You are one of us, but not. Now you speak of menaces beyond the music of our ken. I will trust the sight of your heart.”
Other riders moved forward, joining him, their voices flowing as they discussed these changes in their plans. They soon moved out, half of their fighters with Shannon, the other half remaining behind to protect the caravan.
For the first time in centuries, the Blue Dale Archers rode to Rillia.