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Tenacity hung over the blue-green expanse of Sanctuary, her nearly kilometer-and-a-half, shark-like hull catching the gleam of sunlight spilling fresh over the planet’s curve. Attendant vessels crowded to her flanks like remoras. A few welding torches flickered here and there, the only remaining hint of the ship’s terrible scars, after months of repairs.
And after a week of trials at the edge of the star system and a test of her new Void Drives, she was once again ready to face the enemies of the Republic.
Captain Dath Raker eyed her through the viewport of a vessel drifting off her starboard flank at about three thousand meters and outsizing her by near thirty percent. The Union-class dreadnought, Archon, flagship of the Fifth Battle Squadron, was a fine ship. But nothing outshined his own, regardless that she was ten years older and the introduction of her class—the revolutionary Fenris-series battlecruisers—had effectively made her obsolete.
Some might say the same of Dath.
The door to Archon’s ready room whisked open at his back. “Captain,” an overly-loud voice greeted.
Dath turned from the viewport to face Vice Admiral Dick Gunderson, chief of the Fifth and, these last three months, his boss. Taller by half a head and perpetually fit in the way of expensive genetic tailoring, Gunderson looked every centimeter the First Family patrician. Perfect-tailoring extended to the gold braid, buttons, and blue of his uniform, which his chilly blue-grey eyes complimented perfectly.
It was if someone had factory-ordered “arrogant ass”.
Gah, Dath thought and forced a smile onto his lips, forced himself to stiffen his back and touch his fist to his chest in salute. Stop it. Can’t have that now.
“Good morning, Admiral,” he greeted him with the cheer he always attempted with the man. “How are things?”
“Great, thanks,” Gunderson replied with the disinterested tone he always met Dath with. He settled into his chair at the ready room desk and made himself comfortable before gesturing for Dath to take the other one facing him.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Sorry to have you shuttle over just for this,” Gunderson began as Dath sat. “I understand your test run finished with high marks?”
“Higher than her original proving trials,” Dath replied. “Refitting Tenacity’s dorsal nacelles with the Hypernaught Mark V’s puts her top speed at Void Nine point Five.” He consciously left off that his ship could now outrun Gunderson’s flag.
The Admiral smiled coldly, having clearly digested the fact. “A rather expensive upgrade for an older vessel.”
“Cheaper than laying another new hull,” Dath replied. “And less time-consuming. With the Golgothans waiting out there, the Republic needs every ship as fast as possible.”
Six months ago, the Star Empire of Golgotha, founded by a warped religious cult that had fallen under the sway of the vilest of alien gods, had crashed across the borders of all its neighbors. An interstellar blitz of unrivalled savagery had cost the Republic of Sanctuary ten systems, themselves. Only sheer stubbornness—and Golgotha’s own overextension—had halted the onslaught.
Tenacity had come through those first dark days, hounded across parsecs of space, to arrive home, mangled and bleeding atmosphere. But intact.
And its crew hailed as heroes.
A sentiment Gunderson had gone to pains to point out he didn’t share. “Yes,” he replied. “Every ship, though not all of them in the same way.”
Picking up on the Admiral’s tone, Dath arched his eyebrows quizzically. “Sir?”
“The front has stabilized.” Gunderson leaned over his desktop to touch a holographic control, brought a star map into being in the air over it. Dust motes of light denoted systems and faint color-coding segregated them by allegiances. A reddish-hued blob from up the galactic arm thrust pseudopods into its neighbors. “The Golgothans have even withdrawn in a couple contested systems. And we’re seeing that their offensive against the Grak has been met with heavy loss. They appear to be juggling forces to both block them and us, while they prepare for what the Admiralty believes will be a re-doubled effort against the Ree, to knock them out of the war.”
Dath held up his chin combatively. “Then I presume the Fifth will be leaving for the front shortly.”
“The Fifth will,” Gunderson replied with a glower.
Dath frowned back when the other man’s meaningful silence lingered. A prickle crept across his bare, shaven scalp, itched along the narrow, knotted ridge of scar tissue that ran from brow, through his long-since replaced artificial eye, to the edge of his lip. The latter twitched.
“I don’t follow, sir.”
“Tenacity is receiving a separate assignment.” Gunderson reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a holopad, set it on the tabletop, and slid it across the surface. “You’ll be operating independently again.”
Dath’s frown deepened as he took up the pad, eyed it as he would a morsel of food he knew was poisoned. “We’re not going to the fight?
“It’s a war of attrition, out there, for the moment.” Gunderson gestured at the star map. “It’s aggressive patrols and mine-laying and minor counter-thrusts. The Fleet has other brushfires it needs put out without tying down one of its premier groups.”
“It’s just I had expected—”
“Morvena.”
Gunderson keyed the desktop control again, zoomed the perspective in on a single cluster of systems with dizzying speed. The space around it shaded gray for neutral and a single system pulsed at its heart.
“That’s...a thousand light years from the war,” Dath growled, then remembered himself. “Sir.”
“It’s a ‘show the flag’ mission, Captain. And we’ve been invited. At least...” he grimaced “we’ve been encouraged to send a gesture by some.”
“They continue to maintain their neutrality, though,” Dath replied.
“That’s so.” Gunderson leaned back in his seat, folding his hands together meditatively as he stared into the hologram. “The Unity has always been a bit of a puzzle. But now the pieces seem to be badly jumbled. The war has split their Great Colors, between those who which to remain neutral and those who wish to pick a side.” Eyebrows quirked up. “And which side is not entirely clear to us.”
Dath shook his head. “The Golgothans fired on their ambassador at the Crossroads fight.” He knew; he’d been there.
“They fired on an ambassador that not all the Colors agreed should even have been there.”
“They know who’s behind the Golgothans,” Dath pointed out. “The Arathra.”
And he could see one of the hideous creatures, scrawled across the inside of his good eye in hairy, scuttling memory. Resembling Sanctuarian spiders, save of significantly more massive proportions, the telepathically-imbued Arathra had seduced the already radicalized settlers of Golgotha into their cult. Over centuries, they’d emmeshed their societies into a bizarre quasi-theocracy. Dath couldn’t really say who needed who more; but he knew both desired the conquest of the entire known galaxy.
“I don’t claim to be an expert on Morvenan politics, Captain,” Gunderson was saying. He arched his eyebrows. “In fact, from what I understand, you’re better positioned to speak to that.”
It was hard to know if the Admiral meant that as an accusation or simply a jab. But, seeing another memory, a light purple face of graceful, narrow angles, blue-black hair, and very human blue eyes, he imagined it was both. Ylura, he thought, trying not to smile.
Ylura Aval, friend—he hoped still—and Fleet officer recently returned from the homeworld of her mother, was half-Morvenan and born into the highest bloodlines of its society. Her uncle an ambassador, and her family frequent contributors to the semi-mystical order of telepaths, the Shala, she was uniquely-placed to know Morvena.
She and Dath shared no small amount of other history, too, a fact he suspected Gunderson of poking at. But Dath Raker wouldn’t be baited.
“Yeah, that’s so.”
“Which makes you perfect for this assignment,” Gunderson pointed out.
“Lieutenant Aval was the real expert,” Dath protested. “And she’s no on Tenacity. I believe she was awaiting re-assignment.”
“There won’t be one,” Gunderson said with finality and pointed at the Morvena system in the star map. “House Orange—her kin—has promised to host Tenacity, so long as she accompanies. But it won’t be a complete pleasure cruise. Intelligence has provided evidence of political turmoil and violence. You’ll need to be on your guard.”
Gunderson deactivated the hologram and leaned back in his chair, regarded Dath for long moments. He’d been through this before, the long, grinding pauses that he was certain the Admiral meant as unbalancing, a way to assert control, to bully, even. And Dath wasn’t the sort to knuckle under to such. So, the pair sat in glowering quiet.
“The Republic can’t have a hostile party on its flank,” he went on, at last, “not with the war in such doubt. Tenacity’s heroics on behalf the Unity and its legend, these last couple months, guarantee she will have an effect.” Gunderson’s almost-sneering emphasis on “legend” was unmistakable as a jab. He smiled coldly. “Something you wanted to say, Captain?”
“May I speak freely?”
“That has rarely been a problem for you.” A glitter lit up the Admiral’s eyes. “For others, more so.”
Dath crossed his arms and scowled. “This is a baby-sitting gig, Admiral. Gah! Tenacity is a tried vessel with a veteran crew.” He leaned forward and jabbed a finger onto the desktop. “You need us at the front! We know what it’s like when the Golgos are spraying their Death Webs across the sky!”
“Many ships have seen action in the last three months.”
“In the Fifth?”
Seeing the flinch cross the Admiral’s face, Dath knew his temper had quickly taken him too far. Gunderson was known for a few unpleasant things, but coward wasn’t one of them. And the intimation that the Fifth Squadron wouldn’t have been in the thick of things had the Archons not ordered it to remain near for defense in the uncertain first days of the Gologothan blitz was completely unfair.
But this pile of dung assignment sure as hell wasn’t fair, either.
“These are your orders,” Gunderson told him very quietly.
Picking up on the warning, Dath stiffly replied, “Aye, sir.”
“And, since we’re speaking so freely, allow me to do so, as well.” The Admiral leaned over the table, set his elbows to it as he glared across. “You’re not my pick for this, Dath. In fact, you’re not my pick for anything.”
Anger rippling under the surface, Dath squared his jaw, but couldn’t quite suppress a mocking tone. “Go on, please.”
“Your achievement in dragging Tenacity back from behind enemy lines earned you a lot of favor, there’s no doubt. And the sentimentality towards your ship has only increased, since. But I’ve gone over the records and analyses, too. Your antics at the Crossroads fight nearly cost you everything.”
“We had friends, there, being slaughtered.”
“And no one’s questioning your attempt to save Ambassador Hayley’s party. But turning back after that, engaging in a running fight—”
“That saved no small number of our friends’ and potential allies’ ships,” Dath pointed out.
“Many of which were hunted down later, anyway,” Gunderson snapped. “Your job was to save Tenacity, get her home. But repeatedly, you exposed her to peril; the Crossroads fight, the botched side trip investigating the wreckage of the Third Patrol Squadron.”
“Oh, come on!” Dath’s emotions boiled to the surface and he nearly jerked up out of his seat. “The Admiralty would never have forgiven me for not investigating the possibility of Fleet survivors. We don’t leave our people behind!”
“And there it is,” Gunderson hissed, pointing a single, accusing finger at him. “The people.” He shook his head slowly. “The Fleet values the lives of its crews, of course. But, Dath, if it comes down to a choice between preserving the fighting power of the Republic and a few lives, you’ve shown a decided and troubling aptitude in one direction.”
“How the hell can you say that?” Dath barked. Remembering himself, he brought his voice down. “Sir. I lost seventy-two spacers! Another hundred and fifty wounded!”
“And a lot more of them would have made it back had you just gotten that ship out of there.”
Dath worked his jaw. “But I did get her out of there. I brought Tenacity home” he leaned forward, staring straight into the Admiral’s chilly blue-gray eyes “Dick.”
Gunderson snorted quietly at what was likely an oft-heard play on his name. “And it’s because of that ‘miracle’, that you still command her,” he replied in a calm, dangerous note. “And you will take that command to Morvena and do good service for the Republic there.”
Seeing he’d get nowhere else with arguing, Dath stood slowly from his seat, noted the Admiral did not return the courtesy. Grudgingly, he touched his fist to his chest in salute.
“Yes, sir, we will.”
***
THE BOTANICAL GARDENS of Central Solace took up the better part of twenty city blocks, a jungle-like mass of green seated squarely in the midst of gleaming skyscrapers, under a sky riddled with spacecraft rising towards orbit, or returning from it. The First Families had planted it there, back when they ruled all affairs of what had then been the Hegemony, before their fall and the rise of Republic. Sanctuary’s representative government had seen fit to keep the Gardens in place, since then, perhaps prizing the same lesson from it.
The reminder of a simpler life.
Member worlds of the Republic, as well as those simply on friendly terms, were invited to donate exhibits of their own ecologies and cultures to the space. In some cases, such as with the notoriously-carnivorous Korthan Fanged Blossom, these donations prompted entirely separate sections, well-contained from the native fauna. In others, they were rarely-visited, left as quiet, secluded corners in an otherwise well-travelled park.
Ylura Aval had found her way often to the Morvenan shrine at the Gardens’ far southwestern corner, after her return to Sanctuary. After nearly ten years away, adjustment to the racket of a human city had taken longer than she’d expected. The Shala Meditation Space had proven a sanctuary for her from Sanctuary.
The Space was quiet that morning, as she stepped through streamers of golden sunrise. Leaves and deadfall stirred loose from the over-hanging trees by a storm last night littered its paves. The park rangers only got to this area rarely and she found herself often the only one tidying it up. She did so cheerfully, though, it now having become a ritual of sorts; brushing clear a spot for her to kneel before the Altar.
Tree boughs sagged over the rectangular space, forming a cathedral-like arch. Beneath this, the Altar of Serenity—a reasonable facsimile of those found on Morvena—formed a short dais, backed by a low wall, and topped by a plinth rising to a fountain-bowl. Within this sat a smoothed rock, constantly rotating from the water burbling up beneath it.
The original Orb of Eternity on Morvena was the size of a building and weighed hundreds of thousands of kilos, rotating in the same fashion on a cushion of flowing water. But like this one, the eddies of the fluid gave its motions a soothing randomness. Eternity, the Masters of Shala had taught newly-liberated Morvenans, shortly after the fall of the Old Kings, was just so; unpredictable, ever-moving, but—like the Orb—inviolate. No one being, in their arrogance, should expect to change it alone.
Alone, she thought, drawing in a deep breath smelling of damp stone and sun-warmed vegetation. We are nothing, alone. We are as insignificant as the dust that forms the stars. But together, with a trillion other particles, those become the forges of creation.
Of course, a people as telepathically and empathically-attuned as the Morvena were rarely alone. And so it was with Ylura, who hardly had her eyes closed and her breathing steadied into a meditative cadence when a face disturbed the unborn trance.
Dath. She smiled, seeing his ugly-handsome face in her mind’s eye. Captain Raker.
He’d left her be, since Tenacity’s return to Sanctuary and her transfer off the ship. That had been the agreement. That had seemed the right thing to do at the time.
But now, after time and distance—visits to this place—had given her a different perspective...?
“It’s surprising to find someone else here.”
Ylura flinched and turned at the waist to look over her shoulder. “Indeed, it is.” She blinked away the disorientation of her disturbed trance. “I thought I was the only one.”
A slim human male in a well-fitted athletic jacket and running pants stood at the edge of the Shrine, half-shadowed, but a perfectly-toothed smile shining out. With economical motion, he stepped onto the paves, keeping a polite distance. “There are a few humans—and perhaps others, though I’ve never seen them—for whom the call of Shala is a salve in a Universe gone mad.” He knelt and assumed a similar posture to hers, a meter to her right. “I’m Ryan.”
“Ylura,” she replied and could not help but reach out with her mind. He hadn’t heard the man’s approach. More, she hadn’t detected it with other, less physical senses. His aura was a faint, featureless blue—utterly unrevealing.
“Does this place do justice to its likenesses on Morvena?” the newcomer asked.
“It is enough,” she answered guardedly. “And I only ever breached the Second Circle, so perhaps I’m not the one to critique.”
“The Second.” He nodded and looked at the Altar. “As a student, I’ll confess to a little awe. You have crossed beyond the intuitive and empathic into the telepathic and the telekinetic.”
“I can read auras and sometimes the thoughts of Morvenans, though rarely humans” she stared right at him meaningfully “unless they let me.” Still his aura showed no hints as to inner motion. If this man was a student, he had certainly mastered self-control. “As to manipulation of matter,” she went on, deciding conversation might reveal more, “I might be able to make a marble move a centimeter, but the effort would break me. That’s more the province of the Third Circle, of a true Master.”
“Something to aspire to, at least.”
“I suppose.” Ylura paused to fully regard the man. After a few moments of shared silence and his unrelenting smile and stare, she snorted. “You’re good, Mister Ryan.”
“It’s just Ryan.”
“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes. “You got me talking. But your aura is perfect. You’re no novice.” She folded her arms. “You’re Fleet.”
“I’m hardly so clumsy,” he chortled. “But I am who you were expecting.” His smile cooled a degree. “From the Agency.”
Ylura shriveled a little inside. “SRA?”
The Secure Republic Agency, the storied intelligence apparatus of the Archons, highest elected officials of the Senate and its effective executive body.
“You make it sound so ominous,” Ryan murmured amusedly—though it was hard to miss the cautious dart of his gaze about their surroundings. “It’s hardly as interesting as the holomedia makes it sound, mostly analysts and clerks.”
“You’re no clerk, either.”
His smile acquired the edge of a honed razor. “That’s so,” he said, very quietly. “And you’re rather more than a Fleet Officer, Ylura Aval, daughter of the late Commander Sai Aval, Republic Fleet, and the Lady Sataya Arrakka, of the Morvenan House Orange. Also, niece of Oron Arrakka, Morvenan Senior Ambassdor.”
Nothing the agent had recited to her was secret knowledge, but the smooth confidence with which he delivered it unnerved her nonetheless. To push past it, she tried defiance. “And what’s your full story, friend? Is it just Ryan?”
He smirked back. “Just Ryan.”
“Of course, it is.”
“Your contact,” he said quietly, then arched his eyebrows. “Unless you’ve had a change of heart?”
She wondered if that was even possible with the SRA. But, “No. I’m in this, whether I like it or not. That was what I promised my uncle.”
He nodded slowly, seemed satisfied. “You’ve already done both our worlds a great service in bringing the Shala Order’s suspicions about Golgotha and the Arathra to us.” His smile went ugly. “Events have validated some of the intelligence, already.”
“Unfortunately, the warning was a bit late.”
“Still valuable.” He shrugged. “We understand now, at least, how a cult as backwards as the one on Golgotha rose from near-starvation to a galactic threat in hardly a century’s time. Propped up by the entities whose malice brought down the Old Kings’ empire.”
“And now intends to topple the Republic.”
He showed his teeth. “They will fail.”
She smiled back at him grimly. He spoke with the confidence of someone who hadn’t actually seen the horror of the Arathra firsthand, nor felt the malice of their mind-powers. She tried to take some comfort in it. “I presume we’re here to discuss how make sure of that?”
“We are” he hesitated “though it involves a bit of a retracing of your path.”
“I’m sorry?”
Ryan produced what looked like a crystalline key fob from his pocket and held it between thumb and forefinger, clicked a button on its side. Its true function became apparent as a hologram materialized in the air above it from a tiny projector.
“Do you know this individual?”
Ylura didn’t quite hide a gasp. A young Morvenan female filled the hologram, what appeared to be a security holocam still of some sort. Like Ylura, she had the faintly purple-hued skin and brownish freckles near the hairline of a high-born member of their race. Unlike her, the young woman’s eyes glowed gold with pure Morvenan blood—whereas Ylura saw the world through the blue, human orbs of her father.
“Quite well, yes,” she replied. “She is my cousin, Tahna Yddisa. My youngest aunt’s daughter.” She looked at Ryan, hesitating before she asked, “What does Tahna have to do with anything?”
The glow of the hologram added shadows to the agent’s coldly angular features. “How well would you say you know her?”
Ylura glanced at the image again. Tahna had never been a particularly athletic girl. But the woman in the hologram had a feral strength about her, a lean, almost desperate energy. Black hair had been tied back from her features, save a single strand that hung before her eyes, gave her a vaguely unsettled appearance. Threadbare, stained jacket and pants added to the impression.
So did the blaster rifle clenched in her white-knuckled fists.
“Very well, once,” Ylura answered. “When I returned to Morvena and stayed on my Uncle Arraka’s estate, she was staying there, too. She was preparing for Initiation into the Shala Order. Her gifts manifested at a very young age. She had already pierced the First Circle of Knowledge, without even the tutelage of a Master. She was strange, though.”
Ylura paused, smiled wistfully at a memory. She’d met her younger cousin for the first time in the fountained garden behind their shared uncle’s manor on a starkly-hot summer evening. The girl had been splashing in one of those fountains, despite admonitions not to.
“So, of course, we became fast friends.”
“You said ‘once’,” Ryan prompted.
Ylura nodded to shake off the memory. “When she was of the earliest viable age for admission, she joined the Order. I didn’t see her again after that, which isn’t unusual; depending on their Path, an Initiate may spend years in study.” Regret colored her thoughts for a moment. “At one point, I thought I might follow.” She sighed as Dath Raker reentered her thoughts for an instant. “But my Path never seemed quite so clear.”
“What did you mean by strange?”
“Strange—” she cut off the answer she started to give without consideration. Anger prickled under her skin. She’d gotten careless around a man that, while maybe not a danger to her, was like a snake coiled up in a corner; not to be taken idly. “Strange like all of these questions,” she went on sharply. Dread suddenly surged. “Did something happen to Tahna?”
Ryan appeared to consider his answer. “A group calling itself the T’Sona—the Ghosts, I believe is the translation—has materialized in the last couple months. At first, they were purveyors of propaganda and petty crimes. But they’ve quickly escalated to acts of terrorism.”
“There were bombings before I left,” Ylura replied. “They were roundly condemned.”
“It’s past that, now,” Ryan said. “It’s reached a point of low-scale guerilla war, with them targeting Morvenan Fleet assets.”
“Before I left, they claimed a kind of anarchist credo. They wanted to tear the Colors down and reinvent the government.”
“Now they have a new voice.”
Ylura looked at him sharply, the dread splitting open within her, spilling to her extremities in a chilling wave. “But she was with the Order!”
“She left it, by all accounts.”
“No one leaves the Order!” Ylura scoffed.
“Nevertheless, she is now known to be a leader in the T’Sona.” He clicked the fob and deactivated the hologram, slid it back into his pocket. “And her rhetoric is violently anti-government and anti-Shala.”
Ylura took a long, calming breath, struggling to reconcile the memory of that joyous, mischievous imp in the fountain with the desperate apparition Ryan had shared. “I begin to understand why you’ve come to me.”
“The Fleet is sending a vessel to Morvena,” the SRA agent went on. “Ostensibly, it’s a diplomatic visit, to encourage the Unity’s ongoing neutrality.”
“They want to dig into the T’Soa. Investigate Tahna.” She stiffened. “You want me to do it!”
His smile returned, icy and vaguely sinister. “You are uniquely qualified. You are also, as I understand, awaiting assignment from the Fleet.” A hint of humor colored his expression. “Consider yourself assigned. You will report to the battlecruiser Tenacity—”
“Wait, what...?”
“She is the best ship the Admiralty felt it could spare to this task,” Ryan cut off any further protest. “And, yes, we are aware of your history with the vessel, and its captain. We do not consider it a problem.”
Now mischief added a twinkle to the agent’s stare.
“From what we understand, she is still short a Systems Officer...”
***
BROTHER-CAPTAIN DAMIAN Heath of the Star Empire of Golgotha stood on the bridge of the battlecruiser Devourer with hands folded behind his back, watching through the main screen as a pair of starships decelerated into position before him.
“That’s them,” announced Devourer’s First Officer, Brother-Commander Mueller. “They’re transmitting the pre-arranged signal.”
Eyeing the Morvenan ships, their smooth, graceful lines with the Void Drive nacelles crafted gracefully tight to the main hulls, Heath scowled. “Too bad. We could use some gunnery practice.”
Mueller chuckled. He’d replaced Kuhn as XO, after the latter had been blasted to bloody shreds in the fight to overtake Tenacity, months before. In addition to his younger energy, Mueller’s wit was notably sharper than his predecessor’s.
“Answer them,” Heath said wearily. “Begin the exchange.”
“Shuttles detected,” Keitel at the Tactical station announced.
Part of the main screen divided off to show a local display with Devourer as a mote of light at its center. The Morvenan conspirators hovered before them at barely a thousand kilometers, a cargo hauler and a light cruiser, close enough that Heath’s ship could sweep both from the stars in a single frenzy of missile and plasma fire.
He suppressed that urge as he noted the cluster of icons lingering off Devourer’s starboard flank. Each winked and notations popped out, the ship’s computer unnecessarily highlighting each’s attributes. They looked more like a museum collection than a squadron of fighting ships; four bulbous, flattened hulls with pairs of claw-like Void Drives on their flanks, vaguely arachnid in appearance, like all Golgothan vessels.
Widow-series cruisers; last-generation warships that should have been stripped for scrap, save that they’d been held as a reserve in the Homeworld Fleet. Now, they had a new purpose, probably one more suitable to their limited abilities. And, fully restored and rearmed, it wasn’t as if they weren’t dangerous; Devourer might have a stern fight to finish them all off, single-handedly.
“Docking in sixty seconds,” Mueller noted with a shuffle of his feet.
“Something unmans you, Commander?” Heath asked the younger man.
He ceased his fidgeting abruptly. “I can’t say I enjoy being this close to the mind-witches, Brother-Captain.”
Heath grinned coldly, completely understanding the sentiment. “Nevertheless, this is our task. Take strength from the superior potency of the Mistress. She is more than any of these weakly, purple-skinned freaks can muster.”
Dark, weighty presence filled Heath’s mind at the words. Rows of crystalline eyes gleamed approvingly from the shadows of his mind. A pair of fangs the length of a child’s arm glistened, a reminder of the Mistress’ power over life and death. She was the goddess of the miniature world of the Devourer, as the Arathra were on most Golgothan capital ships.
And at this moment, She hungered intensely.
“More shuttles,” Mueller announced.
“Those will be skeleton crews for the relics,” Heath replied with a slight scowl. “Enough to get them back to wherever it is they’ve established their hideaway.”
Watching the light specks coast over to the Widows, Heath allowed himself to ponder the wisdom of this whole scheme. Despite their age, those were still Golgothan warships. But he squelched doubt with a physical clenching of the muscles. The plan wasn’t his; it was the Mistresses. And one didn’t question Them.
“Continue to monitor the exchange,” Heath ordered. “Keitel” he turned to the officer at the Tactical station—one of his veterans “weapons on standby. Anything unusual from those Widows, and you have permission to unleash a Death Web.”
Keitel, like most of his comrades, pale to the point of unhealthy-looking from many uninterrupted months in space, smiled like a skull. “Aye, Brother-Captain.”
“Brother-Commander” Heath turned back to Mueller “you have the bridge. I go to ensure the witches have kept up their side of the bargain.”
“Sir.”
Heath turned and strode aft for the right-rear corner of the pentagonal compartment, where a turbolift whisked open to admit him. A quick trip down brought him to V Deck, along the belly of the battlecruiser. He exited into the cramped corridor running approximately along the beam of the vessel and, more importantly, straight into the shuttle bay. Long strides brought him to that refreshingly open expanse.
The Morvenan shuttle was already landing, a graceful, almost artfully-impractical vessel, more like a durasteel insect, complete with wings folding up along its spin. This motion allowed a hatch to hiss with pressurization and peel back from its “abdomen”. Golgothan marines in bulky black armor, with facemasks down waited in a file before it, weapons visibly at the ready. From within the shuttle, a tall, lithe figure emerged and, seeing them, stiffened slightly.
“Welcome aboard the Devourer,” Heath called to the Morvenan as he joined the guard detail. “I presume you bring the payment?”
The creature wore armor that accentuated his slender physique with a completely impractical cape trailing behind, but a very practical blaster holstered at his hip. The Morvenan’s typically blue-black hair had been scraped back from its angular, purple face into a short, severe ponytail. Unnervingly gold-glowing eyes narrowed at Heath.
“Of course,” the Morvenan replied at last, in a soft voice—Heath knew they preferred telepathic communication, though certainly retained the capacity of vocal speech. And this one’s tone was practiced enough to convey a hint of arrogance that sent a prickle of fury through Heath’s blood. “We would not be here otherwise, no?”
Heath controlled his irritation. “That is so.”
The Morvenan stood aside and gestured to someone within his ship. Shuffling and a stumble, followed by a grunt, prefaced the appearance of a small, pathetic parade. Cadaverous figures issued forth into the bay, clad in stained rags that looked like clothes worn for weeks or longer. Heath’s nostrils flared at the stink of them; unwashed bodies and dried urine that, for all that it was alien, had a very human tang. They staggered and bumped into one another, a half dozen apparitions whose neglect made age and even gender indeterminate.
All wore thick, iron collars about their throats, scrawled with markings Heath couldn’t begin to interpret. All their glowing stares had a dim, unfocused flutter.
“Drugged,” their overseer told Heath. He gestured and a second Morvenan joined him, handed over a small case. Flicking its top open, he showed the row of vials and needles within. “Spares for the journey. But you’ll want to synthesize more.” He clapped the lid shut. “You wouldn’t want their minds to become unshackled.”
Heath grinned unpleasantly back at the alien. Truth be told, he could already feel the pressure of them, a vague cloudiness in the air charged with misery. It prodded him, triggered emotions; loathing, pity, anger. He blinked, suddenly realized it wasn’t them, at all. Glaring into the shimmering gaze of the Morvenan, he realized he was being toyed with.
“Of course,” Heath replied with a baring of his teeth. With a snap, he gestured for one of the marines, who instantly shouldered his weapon and darted forward to take the case.
There was no circumstance under which Damian Heath would besmirch himself by so much as touching one of these creatures. And he gave thanks for the presence of the Mistress, thrumming through the ship, through his nerves and marrows, for keeping the foulness of this he-witch from polluting his thoughts further.
“That’s all of them?” he asked challengingly, even though he knew the answer.
The Morvenan’s jaw worked. “That is what was agreed to.”
Heath nodded in faux-thoughtfulness, gaze playing over the sad rank of prisoners. Six of them—six—looking hardly worth the price of four Widow cruisers, no matter how obsolescent. But the Mistresses desired them. Heath’s eyes settled upon one, younger than the others, a waifish and utterly forlorn woman-child. Like the others, her head had been hastily-shaved, and nicks stood out lividly against a bristled scalp.
He felt a surge of desire, and knew it was not his own. That one.
“Was there anything else?” the Morvenan asked, distaste obvious in his voice as he clearly noted Heath’s intense interest in the girl.
Heath glowered back at the creature. “This is satisfactory. You may go.”
A flinch of rage crossed the Morvenan’s purple face and he offered no farewell, whipping about and striding back into his vessel.
As the shuttle’s hatch whisked shut and its wings unfolded once again to the high-pitched whine of its anti-gravity engines spooling up, Heath gestured to the group. “Those five to the brig,” he ordered the Ensign in charge of the marine detachment. “Keep them carefully-monitored” he nodded at the case of drugs “and, as the witch says, analyze those for replication.” He turned his pointed finger on the sixth Morvenan. “That one comes with me.”
Without waiting for the marines to sort out the tasks, he whirled and strode for the exit. By the time he reached the turbolift, one of the marines had caught up, dragging the girl with him by the arm. He waved them into the open car and crowded in behind them, nose crinkling again at the waif’s stink.
“B Deck,” Heath told the lift computer and touched a palm to its holo-wafer control plate “Restricted access.”
The marine stiffened at the mention of their destination, knowing just what and whom abided in the closed-off compartments below and aft of the bridge. The girl sagged against the curved interior of the lift as it whirred for the upper decks. Heath had time to ponder the emaciated curves of her and experience an unwelcome throb, reminded of the broodmares of his creche. He placed no female over the Mistresses, of course; but it had been a long time at space.
The lift car halted and pivoted on magnetic fields to bring its door about, facing into recesses of the ship no one beyond a select few could enter. Heath heard the marine’s breath rasp faster. Someone of his lowly caste was rarely so blessed as to get this close to Divinity. The door whisked open.
Heath snatched the girl’s arm from the armored man and said, “You may return to your post.” The hiss of the door closing behind them didn’t quite hide the marine’s groan of relief.
A short, poorly-lit passage led to an antechamber with a single, dingy-looking bulb illuminating the humid, hazed space. A different kind of haze filled Heath’s mind, dark and crushing. At his side, the girl whimpered and began to sag again, compelling him to squeeze her arm violently at the pressure point between elbow and shoulder and lever her erect.
“You’ve brought our Mistress a gift,” a rasping voice said from Heath’s right.
A figure in almost priestly-plain black emerged from a second passage—the only other entrance to this most secured and holy of the ship’s chambers.
“Harlander,” Heath growled back and then, remembering himself, added, “Magus.”
More than any of the sunlight-starved crew of the Devourer, Harlander’s flesh had whitened to a corpse-like pallor. And, certainly, the darkly-glittering nearly-black eyes held no life that Heath wanted to understand. Harlander was of the Order of the Fang, the Mistresses’ quasi-religious cult of custodians and caretakers—as well as their spies and secret police. Alone, apart from Heath, he was permitted direct access to Her.
That he was rival for Her affections was also true.
“One of the Morvenan contributions,” the Magus leered at the girl as he stepped close and lifted her chin. A shiver went through her, but unfocused eyes stared straight ahead, their glow fluttering like a candle a hand has passed over.
“Of course.”
“Such lovely things,” Harlander mused, his fingertips tracing down her neck. “Not at all the fearsome horrors without their mind-magic. You can see why the Old Kings crafted them so, for company, for service” his hand paused at the frayed hem of her v-neck collar “for pleasure.”
Heath tugged the waif out of Harlander’s reach with a scowl and glared at the man. “The Mistress has been waiting for the sample. Now’s hardly the time to delay”
Harlander’s eyes narrowed. “Quite.”
“I will take the witch-child into the Cradle.” Heath started for the heavy blast door sealing the compartment—the Mistress’ sanctum; more protected than any compartment in the ship, even the engine room.
“Not alone, you won’t.”
Heath glowered over his shoulder at the man, but his gaze lingered on the long knife sheathed at his hip; almost a machete and, in fact, a direct descendant of the tools that the first settlers of Golgotha had used to clear its primordial jungles—and later used for human sacrifice to their new Goddesses. The latter fact played in the back of Heath’s mind. He was not so favored as to be able to challenge the Fangs and not expect to have one of those long blades plunged into his back.
“We will make our obeisance together, then,” Heath grated and stepped for the door.
It slid back at his approach, but slowed him enough for Harlander to take the girl’s other arm. Together, they dragged her into the fetid, moist air beyond. The Cradle had been rebuilt from the damage it took at Typhon and the webbing that slathered its interior gleamed with wiry newness. Limited lighting was nearly woven over by the strands, casting much of the chamber in gloom. Scampering hinted at movement behind the curtains—freshly-hatched Children, likely; though only drones to guard the Mistress and see to her menial needs.
The Morvenan moaned and sagged to her knees.
Daaaamian Heeeeeath, a darkly familiar voice rasped in his mind.
Propelled by a combination of fear and awe, Heath reached down and wrenched the girl back to her feet, dragged her the rest of the way into the reeking dark. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Harlander’s surprise at his savagery.
What have you brought Me? The voice asked with unalloyed glee. Oh...look at that...
From out of blackness so thick it was practically a physical thing, the Mistress emerged. Eight legs the size of tree boughs propelled her bulk into the light, hooved feet clacking on durasteel plate. An abdomen bloated with overindulgence—though notably scarred from Her trials outside Typhon—dragged the floor obscenely. Pedipalps like a pair of hairy arms unfolded from a face of twin, saber-sized fangs and paired rows of glinting eye bulbs. These caught the feeble light of the compartment, seemed to hold it with an entrancing glow.
I sensed this morsel, of course, the Mistress went on in Heath’s mind. Yes, she will do very well, for now. The eyes and the force of the Mistress’ will focused intently upon him for a moment. How many others?
“Five,” Heath croaked from a throat gone dry.
They send them to us in dribs and drabs, the Mistress rumbled. We were promised many more.
“I’m sure that, if they want more of our ships, more will be forthcoming” Heath dipped his head—uncertain he should have interrupted “Mistress.”
You are likely correct. She paused, seemed thoughtful. The rest will go on to My Sisters. Her attention passed from Heath like a hand releasing his throat, shifted back to the girl. One will not be missed.
“Is there anything else we might do for You?” Harlander spoke up, and his desire to be noticed, to be a part of this was unmistakable.
You can leave.
Heath shivered at the dismissal. With a glance at Harlander, whose sweat-limned grin looked more like a rictus, he released the girl, spun on his heel, and marched for the exit. He felt the Magus hurrying to keep up. The hatch on the far side whisked back to allow them to leave—escape?
A soft sob chased them out the door.
The whump of the closing hatch did not quite mask it as it became a scream.