Angylia free state, Angyl moon, Yu System.
Ferid kept the man awake with stimulants injected directly into his hypothalamus, taking care not to disturb the buildup of plaque and detritus so the effects of sleep deprivation would be acute. It blunted the man’s executive decision-making processes, keeping him pliant.
The man’s medical knowledge meant he knew what Ferid was doing, which added a degree of fun to the whole tiresome exercise. Ferid couldn’t remember his name. He had identified him by the metal finger, an oddly biobotic feature to find in a free-stater. Three weeks of drinking in the right bars on the right planets had led Ferid to the tidbit: One of Arany’s crew had a metal finger. After that, it had taken less than a day to find the man…and he had a wife.
Ferid displayed the woman for the man to see. It had been difficult deciding how much pain he should put the woman through before offering the man the deal. Too much, and he might decide Ferid was lying about letting the wife go if he talked. Too little, and he might decide that Ferid didn’t really mean to kill her.
The dilemma was another novel aspect to the project. It had provided uncertainty. Finally, though, Ferid had found the balance that provided optimum persuasion.
The man blubbered, torn by competing loyalties.
Then Ferid thought of what to say. Awed at his own brilliance, Ferid leaned closer to the smelly man. His smile was genuine. “No one has to know it was you. Arany will never learn about this.” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the breathless moaning of the woman, which destroyed the intimacy of the moment.
The man’s bloodshot eyes gazed at him. Ferid watched hope dawn.
“You’ll let her go?”
“Yes.” She would not be alive when he did let her go, but he would most certainly release her.
The man looked away, toward his wife. He wept again. “What do you want to know?”
* * * * *
The Bonaventura, Free space, Xindar-Coria Confluence.
“Um…boss?” Natasa’s voice carried across the bridge.
Benjamin Arany looked up from the chart he was studying and raised a brow.
Natasa straightened up from where she had been bent over the shoulder of the intern on the scanners. “They’re here.”
“Erium?”
She nodded. Her elongated eyes narrowed even farther. “You sure you want to do this?”
“I don’t think I’ve been completely sure since I kissed Maureen Owenzky behind the woodpile when I was twelve.” Arany dismissed the chart and got to his feet. “We’d better come about and hold.”
Natasa rolled her eyes. “Maybe we should just duck and run as usual. I mean…” She glanced around the bridge and moved closer, so she could lower her voice. “Word is, the Eriumans are more pissy than usual. Some royal son of theirs got killed and they’re grumpy about it.”
Arany nodded. “Maximilian Cardenas. He died in free space, Natasa. That’s why they’re grumpy. They think we did it. You might want to at least try to keep up with the news.”
Natasa grinned. “We didn’t?”
“Kill him? I don’t think anyone in free space is that stupid.”
“Maybe they didn’t know who they had under the knife.”
“The purple uniform should have told them. You don’t fuck with the Eriumans.”
“Right. So why are we fucking with them, boss?” She pointed at the scanner screens the intern had up. The blip was big.
“Cruiser?”
“The Jovian.”
Arany was pleased. The Jovian was one of the big ones, retrofitted to carry fighters in the hold. “Are they shouting at us yet?”
“Boss, you’re on their wanted list. They’re not going to shout. They’re going to shoot.”
Arany looked over his shoulder. “Ready, Dex?”
Dex had his hands over his dashboard, hovering. He nodded.
Arany leaned on the navigation table. “Let’s do this.”
* * * * *
Eriuman Naval Vessel Jovian, Free space, Xindar-Coria Confluence.
Captain Sher Carosa tilted his head, baffled. “Is he…just sitting there?” he asked of everyone, as he studied the screen showing the small, shiny dot.
Pramoda lifted his head. “They scanned us. They know we’re here.”
Carosa frowned. “It is the Bonaventura, yes?”
“Confirmed.”
Carosa sighed. “Free-staters…” He signaled to the mid-shipman, who turned to murmur to the coordinators under his command. “Arany is too critical to ignore,” Carosa told Pramoda.
Pramoda watched the mid-shipman. “Fighters launched,” he confirmed.
Carosa watched on the screen as the swarm of little fight craft speared across open space, heading for the Bonaventura.
“More ships have appeared, sir,” Pramoda said calmly.
“More?” Carosa was startled. “How many?” Now he could see them on the screen. More pinpoints of light, gathering around the Bonaventura. “Magnify!”
The screen zoomed. Now the ships were clear—a motley cloud of freighters and converted ex-military vehicles, reclaimed public transports…in short, the junk of the galaxy.
“Forty-six ships, sir,” Pramoda said. “Forty-seven,” he added as another one appeared.
“Forty-seven freeships, all in one place,” Carosa breathed.
“And they’re not shooting at each other, either,” Pramoda pointed out.
“They’re turning!” one of the bench coordinators called out.
On the screen, the forty-seven free ships were all orienting themselves. One only oriented a ship when they intended to traverse space. Null-space jumps could be taken from anywhere.
“Are they attacking?” Pramoda asked, sounding amused.
Carosa sat up, his heart giving a little squeeze. “When will the fighters reach them?”
“They’re closing,” the mid-shipman said.
Carosa rolled his eyes. “How soon?”
The mid-shipman looked down at his team. “Twenty seconds.”
It was a tense twenty seconds. Carosa stared at the screen, his mind racing, trying to figure out Arany’s ultimate intention. They could engage with the fighters, but what would it prove? They could not take on a cruiser, not even forty-seven of them.
The freeships leapt forward, all of them keeping together in a tight formation that Carosa had time to admire for the coordination needed for such a maneuver. For a few seconds, it looked as though the two sets of vessels would clash head-on.
Then Arany’s ships ducked. There was no better word for it. The dive beneath the flight path of the fighters was a deliberate evasion. The fighters flew over the top of the freeships and Carosa heard the coordinators screaming instructions to flip and chase, rotate, rotate, damn it!
Pramoda stared at the screen with the same degree of curiosity as Carosa. “I do believe they mean to attack. Us, I mean.” He glanced at Carosa. “The fighters will easily catch them. The freeships are not nearly fast enough to outrun them.”
Carosa frowned. Had he missed something? What had he overlooked? He didn’t underestimate Arany. The man had caused more than casual damage to over a dozen naval vessels. He had to know that sprinting toward a cruiser was a fast form of suicide.
He sat up as alarm bloomed hot in his chest and guts. “Get the forcefields up! Now!”
Pramoda passed on the order, then looked at Carosa, baffled. “The fighters will take care of them.”
“All of them? Before they reach us?” Carosa snapped coldly.
“Enough of them to make the rest not matter.”
Carosa shook his head. “Get us out of here, Pramoda. Null jump. I don’t care where. Just do it.”
“Sir, the fighters…”
“We’ll come back and pick them up, if there are any left.” Carosa slapped the arm of his chair. “Now!”
Heads snapped around to look at him.
“Fighters engaged!” the mid-shipman called.
Pramoda frowned down at his bench. “We will be able to jump in sixty seconds.”
Carosa slumped back. “Too long.” He looked at the screen. The fighters were firing at the backs of the freeships. Carosa had seen the fighters do the same with Karassian units. Usually, the ships that were struck bloomed into an instant fireball, that evaporated immediately. A split-second marker of death.
He could see the freeships taking hits. Two of them stopped dead in space. Yet none of them flared into flames.
“They’re all shielded,” Pramoda breathed. His tone said he finally understood. “They’re slower, because they’re shielded.”
Carosa watched the screen.
“They still can’t touch us,” Pramoda added. “The fields are in place. The limited ammunition they have can’t get through.”
Carosa watched the freeship squad draw closer, dread pooling at the pit of his stomach. “Send for assistance.” He couldn’t raise his voice.
“Sir!” Pramoda protested.
“Do it.” Carosa looked back at the screen, at the approaching ships.
Pramoda sent the communications bullet then looked up again. “They’re going to have to break off their approach soon, or they’ll…” Carosa heard his quick intake of breath.
The freeships grew enormous on the screen. The scanners zoomed back, but couldn’t retract fast enough. The last thing Captain Carosa saw was the bellies of dozens of ships as all but one of them skimmed over the top of the Jovian. One of the freighters ploughed straight ahead, ramming through forcefields designed to repel light and heat, slicing through hull and superstructure. The freeships were slow compared to the fighters, although that was relative. The freighter hit the side of the Jovian at thousands of kilometers an hour. It wasn’t a collision, for the freighter instantly detonated, spewing active fuel into the Jovian, while the splinters and fragments of the ship tore through multiple decks, destabilizing structures, destroying bulkheads and killing crewmembers just as they recognized the danger.
The screens were blank, although Carosa, who had been recruited into the Navy because of his astro-physics education, could tell what had happened through the shuddering and flexing of the deck beneath his feet and the rumbling that quickly rose in volume to become a roar.
“They flew into us!” Pramoda cried, gripping the bench in front of him for stability. “Sir, the damage…!”
“Destruction, Pramoda,” Carosa said calmly. “They’ve killed us.”
* * * * *
Pleasure Dome, Antini III, Free Space.
The news of the destruction of the Jovian by a little group of freeships sent a frisson of shock through the known worlds. It was as if everyone paused to draw a breath and re-orient themselves in the face of a game-changing disaster.
“Of course, here on Antini, we take no notice of the war at all, as you can see,” the nearly naked host explained to them, as he—or she—Reynard Cardenas could not determine, led the small party through the public areas of the dome. “We are at capacity right now and have been since the disaster.” The host smiled at them, showing dimples. “If not for your very special hosts insisting upon accommodations, we might not have been able to find the space you need.”
The public areas were just that—a series of areas designed to resemble other world locations. They had crossed romantic bridges over slow-flowing streams, moved across parkland, followed a trail through a dense woodland and walked along a planked sidewalk next to a sandy beach. It wasn’t the areas that sent shock slithering through Reynard’s veins. It was the uninhibited sexual activity that was taking place in any direction he turned his gaze. Inside the punt meandering along the slow river, on the sandy beach, on the bridge itself as they squeezed past, people were coupling in fevered twos, threes and more. It wasn’t just people, either. There were animals and biobots, even metal help-meets that had been enhanced with genitals—an aberration that made Reynard moan in disgust.
After a few minutes of the orgasmic excess, Reynard grew inured to the effect. He trod steadily after the host, his men around him, and kept his gaze on the host’s back.
There was a little house just ahead, with quaint windows that opened and closed and a door with a round handle. The host turned the handle and pushed the door open, then stepped aside. “Enjoy your meeting, gentlemen.” He/she smiled widely.
Gaubert gripped his arm. “Let me go first.” He stepped inside, the top of his head brushing the doorframe.
Reynard ducked under the frame and followed him.
The inside of the house was quite innocent. Everything seemed to be inanimate and simple. The flooring was soft. Reynard realized why the floor was a spongy texture and grimaced again.
A round table was sitting in the middle of the room beyond the door. There were five people sitting around the far side of it, just as there were five men in Reynard’s group. All of those sitting had the blond hair and brown eyes of the standard Karassian. One of the men already seated was half-cyborg. His arms were robotic, so was his neck. Reynard had to force himself not to stare.
The man in the middle, though, looked perfectly normal. Reynard wondered if he was as purely human as he appeared. The walk through the Pleasure Dome had reminded Reynard that beyond the borders of Erium, transhumans were common and accepted as equals. He glared at the man in the middle. “Did you insist upon meeting here to remind us of our loss, Woodrow?”
Woodrow spread his hands, his round face breaking into a smile. “We prefer that you be reminded by this place that cooperation is possible even amongst those with nothing in common.”
“I consider myself reminded.” Reynard did not sit down. “You asked for this meeting. I suggest you get to the point. I do not bargain well when I am nauseous.”
Woodrow raised his brows. “We are not here to bargain. Oh, dear. I must apologize if that is the impression you were given. Sit, Cardenas. We, the Karassian people, have a gift for you.”
Reynard stayed on his feet. “Why would a Karassian want to give me a gift?”
“We are all empathetic beings, are we not?”
Reynard didn’t bother responding.
Woodrow’s smile faded. “Your family in particular has felt the bite of free state violence lately. I understand that the captain of the Jovian was a first cousin of yours. And of course, the murder of your son, only meters away from where we sit…”
Reynard made an impatient gesture. “Your point, Woodrow?”
“No one knows who murdered your son. Perhaps we’ll never know. However, the party responsible for the destruction of the Jovian…well, that is different.”
“You speak of Benjamin Arany and his fleet as if your intelligence corps has uncovered a great secret. We have known about Arany for years.”
“Yes, but do you know where his base of operations is located?” Woodrow asked. His smile returned. “Not even your much vaunted intelligence machine has been able to find that out, has it?” Woodrow put his hand on the shoulder of the small, pale man with red-shot eyes, who sat next to him.
Reynard let his gaze flicker over the man and an atavistic shiver rippled over him. He would arrange to never be alone with that one. True madness shone from his eyes.
“This is Ferid, who is not part of the Karassian Intelligence Corps, so if you think to waylay him later and pump him for information about Karassian affairs you would be wasting your time.” Woodrow lowered his hand, while Ferid gave a smile that was chilling in its good cheer.
“Ferid has learned the location of Arany’s fleet, where they hide out when not destroying Eriuman cruisers,” Woodrow said.
Gaubert turned so his shoulder was to the table and spoke urgently. “You cannot accept this information, Reynard. It will be tainted. The Karassians do not hand over gifts like this without a price.”
Reynard barely heard him. There was a high note singing in his mind, making thought difficult, except for one shining concept.
Vengeance.
Gaubert gripped his forearm and squeezed hard. “Death is the price of war. Sher Corvosa knew that as thoroughly as Max did. This would not be war.”
“Let me go,” Reynard said, not bothering to lower his voice. Over Gaubert’s shoulder, he could see Ferid’s grin and Woodrow watching with close scrutiny.
“You would dishonor their deaths,” Gaubert said, his voice low.
Reynard looked at him. “Max was dismembered and disemboweled, here, in this place. What honor was there in that?”
“You would seek vengeance for his death by treating with these people?” Gaubert asked. He glanced over his shoulder. “They want you to take the information. For that reason alone, you should refuse it. We can find Arany for ourselves if you really want his blood to spill.”
Reynard breathed out the miasma that choked his throat. He looked at Gaubert. “I really want it.” And he closed his eyes. “Just not this way,” he added softly. “Clean. Swift. Untainted. Merciless. That is what I want.”
Gaubert gripped his arm. “Go back to the shuttle. I’ll send these Karassians on their way. Go on.”
Reynard sucked in the warm air. It was difficult to breathe here. He suddenly longed for the hills of Cardenas and the cool air there. Even if the house was silent these days, it was his. He was an outsider here. So he nodded at Gaubert and turned and left. He did not miss the startled expressions of the Karassians and took a pinch of comfort in defying their expectations. He was Eriuman. It was good to be unpredictable.
* * * * *
When his older brother had left, the door of the house clicking shut behind him, Gaubert turned back to Woodrow and leaned over the table. “I am not my brother,” he said, speaking quickly. “He would destroy your enemy for personal vengeance. I would do it for Erium. Tell me where to find Arany.”