Chapter Nineteen

Cardenas (Findlay IV), Findlay System, Eriuman Republic.

The final approach to Cardenas was a long elliptical that kept the Alyard in the blind spot over the desert. It was harsh and hot when the frigate settled on the salt pan. Three kilometers away, the smoke from the fires that had guided Connie to the surface was still rising lazily up into the air. There was no moisture here, not even at night, to dampen the fuel and extinguish the fire. It had burned for the days they had been gone and would continue to burn until the fuel was spent.

Zeni’s crew were waiting with the trucks and carts loaded with gear standing by. They were jumping up and down and cheering as the ship settled, even though Sang, standing on the bridge, could not hear them over the vast engines winding down.

Bellona looked at the little Karassian captain, Sandip. She was smiling. “Tell me again how the ship can’t land inside a gravity well?”

Sandip had been restrained chemically. Below the neck, he could not move. He had sat in the upright chair for the three days it had taken to return to Cardenas, with the doctor hovering over him, monitoring vital signs with the tools on the end of her arm. Sandip had watched Bellona take over his bridge and ship, silently resigned.

Bellona had stayed as Xenia. Most of the bridge crew were dazzled by her, still half-convinced she had some great scheme in mind to enhance the Karassian reputation with a stunning victory that required desperate measures, including piracy. They had obeyed her commands with little hesitation, while Sandip fumed in his chair.

Khalil supervised the piloting of the ship to the correct coordinates himself. He did not trust the navigator, who recognized the coordinates when they were given to him. The navigator had paled and drawn back from his screens.

Khalil pushed him aside. “I’ll do it myself,” he told Bellona. “I didn’t spend all my time on Ben’s ships fixing his computers.”

Now the ship had settled down on the hard surface and silence dropped over it. The bridge crew looked at Xenia expectantly.

“Doors,” Bellona ordered. “All of them open, all ramps extended.”

Sang could feel the rush of hot, dry air from the desert. It tightened the flesh on his face. With it came the smell of arid sand.

“Everyone, get off,” Bellona ordered.

The Karassian crew looked at her, puzzled. They still thought she was a Karassian champion.

From deeper inside the ship came shouting and running feet. Bellona’s team would be rounding up the crew and shepherding them off the ship at gunpoint. As the sounds filtered into the bridge, the Karassians lost their puzzled looks.

More of Bellona’s people ran onto the bridge, their guns raised. They motioned to the Karassians, who without exception glared at Bellona before turning and leaving the bridge.

Bellona ignored them. “Is Connie still comfortable?” she asked Sang.

“She is chatting with the ship’s primary AI. She convinced it to scan for heat signatures. If anyone is hiding, Connie will find them.”

Amilcare, one of the original miners in Abilio who had turned into a capable lieutenant, snapped off an informal salute to Bellona. “The water is offloaded. All the vehicles are disabled, although if the Karassians have two neurons to rub together, they’ll figure out how to start them again.”

“We want them isolated for a while, not dead,” Bellona said approvingly. “Everyone!” she said, raising her voice. “Quarter the ship, check for lingerers and toss them.”

The teams had been practicing on the replica frigate for weeks, so there was no hesitation about where to go and what small spaces to check. There was a flurry of activity that gradually eased as everyone took up their assigned positions, replacing the essential flight roles of the Karassian crew. Khalil remained at the navigation table, bent over screens and frowning.

Sang counted noses, checked stations, then asked Connie to close the doors, seal and check.

Five minutes later, the Alyard rose up into the air, leaving the subdued and angry Karassians on the surface, staring up at their ship.

When they reached the outer atmosphere, Wynne, on the externalities station, spoke. “Eriuman cruiser, seven point three thousand kilometers and closing.” Wynne swiveled to look at Bellona. “It’s the Severus.”

“My father’s last ditch effort to keep me on Cardenas,” Bellona said, her voice dry. “As rehearsed, Wynne. Under them and away.”

It was a two day jump to Kachmar, traversing both Eriuman and Karassian space. They emerged above the mostly green planet and alarms immediately sounded.

Bellona looked at Sang.

“Connie is talking to them,” Sang assured her. He tapped into her conversations and heard the exchange of Karassian credentials. There was a short pause, while the Karassian authorities checked and while Sang’s heart hurried.

The alarms cut off.

Sang let out his breath. “They have accepted Connie’s identity.”

“Until someone is within visual range and sees the Alyard, not a little yacht,” Amilcare added.

“By the time anyone gets up here, we’ll be on the surface,” Bellona said. “Remember the dry runs. It’s straightforward from here on. Put her down, please, Sang.”

Sang congratulated Connie on her successful handshake with the Karassians, then asked her to beach the ship.

* * * * *

Ledan Resort, Kachmar Sodality, The Karassian Homogeny.

After months of living in dry heat, Sang found the moist air over the Ledania island thick and smelly. Many of the crew were waving their hands in front of their noses in reaction to the smells of decay and mold that the swampy land exuded, as they spread out across the island.

Their landing had been noted. It would have been impossible to land a frigate-sized ship and not be noticed, so Sang did not worry about the klaxons blaring a kilometer away, where the compound started. He did run, though, as did everyone else. As he ran to keep up with the team, he and Connie sweet-talked the AIs controlling the compound security and feeds.

“There is a small chance the two of you will be able to convince the AIs to shut down everything and let us in,” Bellona had said during planning sessions. “We won’t count on it working, but it will simplify matters if it does.”

By the time Sang could properly see the end of the swamp and the fused earth of the compound, Connie had convinced the AIs that the klaxons were unnecessary, that their beloved Xenia was returning home, that was all.

As Xenia was a part of their archives, the AIs were confused and consulted with trusted humans, who were also confused. By now, their lenses would have spotted the approaching team. Bellona made no attempt to hide, so they could see it was Xenia heading toward them.

When Xenia had first escaped, the Homogeny had suppressed the news. It would have been too shameful to admit that the champion of the people had been detained against her will in the first place and that she had escaped her captors in the second. Better to pretend she was simply unavailable and taking a long-earned rest from her endeavors.

Connie had told Sang all about the legends of Xenia when they had first chatted. Bellona had woven the deception into her attack plans.

The confused security crews tried to consult with more senior personnel and while they did not drop all security defenses, they did turn off the audible alarms, just in case they really were making a massive mistake.

By the time they got the attention of senior managers, it was too late. Bellona’s crew had reached the hardpan. They sprinted, using the pause that doubt and uncertainty had created.

When the automatic defense systems kicked into gear, the crew was already too close to the compound walls for the systems to fire. With screams and yells designed to further confuse and alarm the watchers, the team tossed self-guiding grapnels and climbed the walls with the fiber ladders the grapnels extended once they had settled themselves.

Sang threw himself over the wall and dropped into an unadorned service area. There were doors along the corridor and he pointed to them.

The team split up. This, too, had been planned and rehearsed for weeks. They forced open the doors and stepped into the illusion that was Ledan, with its tropical atmosphere and bright sun, lapping waters and the flutter and coo of birds in trees.

Several of the team paused to look around, blinking in astonishment. Sang noted who was distracted and slapped the nearest on the shoulder, jerking him back to focus.

The little lagoon was just ahead and there were Karassians in the resort uniform trying to round up the inmates. The inmates—the apps—were protesting in bewildered tones, for this was a departure from the norm, from the usual placid life of Ledan. They didn’t understand, although the emotion inhibitors were stopping them from panicking. Instead, they passively resisted.

Sang saw the tall, metal-enhanced figure of Hayes, over by the little beach, with three Karassian handlers all trying to tug him along, while he dug in his heels, frowning. The others were all known to Sang, too, for he had studied their public appearances. Xenia’s recall of names and faces had been accurate.

Bellona’s teams were attacking the resort people, pulling them away from the apps and temporarily disabling them. Then they, too, had to coax the apps into cooperating. Each of the four-man teams carried the same sedative that Sang had used on Bellona, when he and Khalil had freed her. The teams had been instructed to use the sedative if reason did not work. The first line of reason, though, was to point to Bellona-Xenia and explain they were with Xenia.

Several of the apps were stumbling toward the service areas with their four-man teams, still confused and apprehensive, but cooperating.

“Sang. Zeni, Khalil. With me,” Bellona called.

Sang beckoned to the remaining teams, turned and followed Bellona into the heart of the compound. The rooms and buildings beyond the lagoon were a rabbit warren that Bellona and Khalil had mapped out as best they could remember. Khalil had accessed areas behind the public rooms the apps had been limited to and knew that the buildings ran deep. All the apps, though, were kept in the front rooms, the ones that looked like vacation getaways.

Bellona led the file of people into the different areas—sleeping quarters, ablutions, dining. In each, the teams would peel off and search each area, looking for more apps. Sang’s tally told him that there were five more to be found. So far there had been no apps whose face was unknown to Sang.

In the dining area, they met their first serious resistance. A line of Karassian military in their brown uniforms were standing with ghostmakers raised. The polished stone floor had been cleared of tables and chairs, which were tossed into a corner. They had a clear shot as Bellona and the others filed into the big, open area.

In front of the line of military was a Karassian that Sang knew purely because Bellona had mentioned him once in the past, when recalling her time as Xenia. Because Karassians loved to have their likeness splashed across as many screens as possible, Sang had been able to build dossiers on everyone that Bellona remembered.

This man, Sang knew. His name was Woodrow. From Xenia’s hazy, dreamlike recollection of life in Ledan, Sang had determined that Woodrow was one of the administrators and thoroughly unlikeable. Even Xenia had not found his company pleasant, although the apps were incapable of feeling something as strong as dislike.

Woodrow watched Bellona approach, a small smile on his face. “Welcome back, Xenia.” His voice was high and hard. His eyes were close-set and deep, although they were the proper light Karassian brown.

Bellona stopped in front of him, ignoring the raised guns, while everyone else spread out next to her, their ghostmakers aimed.

Sang stayed by Bellona’s elbow. He carried no gun. That was not his role, today.

“While you delay me here, your apps are being escorted back to my ship,” Bellona told him. “You won’t be able to stop me from leaving. We have disabled your defense shield.”

“Did you find that easy to do, by chance?” Woodrow asked.

Bellona’s gaze flickered toward Sang.

Sang checked with Connie, who chattered happily about her accomplishments.

He nodded at Bellona.

Bellona looked back at the little man. “You were expecting me, Woodrow?”

“How nice. You remember me.” Woodrow smiled broadly, showing small teeth. “We remember you, of course. Everyone remembers you, including those you are absconding with while we speak. It astonished everyone here to realize that the apps were retaining longer term memories. All of them focused upon Xenia and her absence. It upset the program. Some of them couldn’t be sequenced for missions because of their stronger recall. We have had to be inventive to get around the limitations your departure introduced.”

“Sorry about that,” Bellona said airily.

“Of course, all that damage would instantly be neutralized, if you stayed.”

Khalil laughed.

Bellona smiled, too, but Sang could see she was troubled. “You must be quite mad if you think I would stay here and knowingly let myself be used and manipulated, the way you used Xenia,” she said.

“You could be their leader,” Woodrow said, as if she had not spoken at all. “You have their trust and they would follow you wherever you led them.”

“You mean, fight for Karassia?” Bellona did laugh this time.

“Erium doesn’t want you,” Woodrow pointed out. “You know that, or you would not have come here in search of your true friends.”

“I want to get them out of Ledan,” Bellona replied. “I want them removed from your filthy programming.”

“He’s stalling,” Khalil said softly. “Playing for time.”

Woodrow glanced at him. “Your Bureau pet’s perceptions are as distorted as yours, Bellona. May I call you that? He wants to believe the Bureau values you as much as we do, which gives him a reason to resist them, as he doesn’t have the backbone to resist for his own sake. Yet the Bureau doesn’t want you, either. They killed your brother to cripple you, not motivate you.”

“Is that why they killed Ben Arany? To disable Khalil, too?” Bellona asked. Her tone said that this was an accepted fact and not her stabbing in the dark.

“Oh, the Bureau didn’t kill Arany,” Woodrow said dismissively. “Your father did that.”

Bellona just barely hid her gasp. Sang held still, his heart pounding, as he tried to juggle the odds, to determine if it could possibly be true.

Khalil gave a choking sound. The muzzle of his gun lowered.

“He’s manipulating you,” Sang whispered to Bellona.

She didn’t look at him. Her grip on the ghostmaker tightened, making her knuckles whiten. “Why would my father do that?” she demanded of Woodrow. Her voice was hoarse.

Woodrow’s smile was bright. “I might have implied that Arany killed your brother Max.”

Sang’s thoughts froze. It was shock, as he experienced it. Then the human reaction set in. Adrenaline spiked, making him shake. Thought came back on-line, yet it was compromised. Stunted. If he was reacting this way, then Bellona had to be suffering, too.

Bellona smiled. “Khalil is right. You’re stalling. You think the Karassian military will swoop in to save you. They won’t, Woodrow. They think one of their frigates is already taking care of the situation. They can see it from their nice warm bridge seats and the frigate’s AI is telling them exactly what they want to hear.”

Woodrow showed the first sign of doubt. His mouth worked as he grappled with it. “You’re lying,” he said, finally.

Bellona lowered the gun. “Your guards won’t shoot us. They can’t. If the other apps see the guards shooting at Xenia, they will rebel and you’ll never get them back. So we’re going to walk out of here and you’re going to let us.”

Woodrow’s whole face writhed with fury. “Your father wanted vengeance. He said it, right in front of me! What sort of people are the Eriumans, to kill a whole planet?”

Bellona gestured to everyone. Sang backed up as she had commanded. The others followed suit.

“The Karassians gave Erium the weapon and stood back and watched,” Bellona told Woodrow as she turned to follow. “What does that make you?”

“There is nowhere for you to go!” Woodrow shouted back. “No one wants you!”

“My friends do!” Bellona cried.

It acted as a signal. All of them turned and ran.