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The shade of her father was still haunting Khiry Jaxan.
Striding for the turbolift on H Deck, returning from sickbay after visiting a couple of her toughs wounded in the Farside fight, she thought she caught the echo of his voice, turned suddenly to glare down the passageway at her back. But there was nothing. Dad only ever lurked at the corners of her vision, never pinned down when she wanted him to stay put. But she knew he was there.
Not there, she told herself. It’s got to be that girl’s mind-manipulation. Shaking her head in irritation, she resumed course for the lift.
The door whisked open at her touch. Scott Varley smiled out at her.
She stiffened. “Commander.”
His eyebrows raised when she didn’t immediately enter and join him. “It’s not exactly crowded, Jaxan,” he quipped after the pause grew awkward, “and I’m guessing you’re heading the same way.”
She’d hardly seen him since the withdrawal from Farside, too busy with caring for her toughs, seeing to casualties, stowing gear—and, yeah, maybe she’d been keeping deliberately busy. He’d tried contacting her via augmentation. But she didn’t need this...whatever the hell it was between them. Realizing that her hesitation likely only fed into it, she hastened into the lift and let door hiss shut.
Varley leaned past her and stabbed the control panel with a finger, froze the car in the chute. The motion also put him way too damned close.
Jaxan sighed. “See, I was right.” She scowled at him. “Too crowded.”
“What the hell was that, back on the Station?” he snapped.
She grinned back dangerously. “Unless you’re wanting that wrist broken, Commander, you’ll take your hand off the control.”
“I’m willing to take the chance,” he replied, and sounded genuinely upset, not playing his usual games. “Answer me, Jaxan. Maybe at least get your story straight before you have to give it to Raker.”
She saw Dad in the car with them for a fraction of a second, swallowed. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“How about you try me?”
Then there was no phantom, just Varley standing close—real close—talking like he did actually care, really did want to know.
“She was in my mind,” Jaxan answered at last.
“The way they do,” Varley snarled, “if you let ‘em.”
“This was different.” She leaned towards him, compelled his retreat towards the center of the car. The release of his palm sent the lift whirring for C Deck. “She wasn’t forcing me,” Jaxan went on. “She was sharing things. Things that...I don’t know; have to mean something.”
“They’re mind-witches, Jaxan,” Varley hissed. “It’s games.”
“It’s not.” She paused, forced an acidy tone that matched the sudden sizzle of her blood at his words. “And that’s a nasty damned thing to call them. I figured you for a casual humano-centrist, Scott, but not a supremacist.”
He blinked, anger colliding with hurt in his eyes. “I’m nothing of the sort.” He started back towards her a step, then held up, appeared to think better on it. “But you and Aval are all up in this way over your eyeballs.”
“Then that sounds like our problem,” she retorted, “not yours.”
“Jaxan...” Varley stopped himself, visibly forced the tremor from his voice and let the redness fade from his features. “Khiry,” he resumed in a quieter, more careful tone, “I can’t help you if you’re going to be like this.”
Something squirmed inside Jaxan, the earnestness in his eyes triggering what felt like a flight within her, a race to not be bathed in that stare, not have him that close to her. Stubbornness solidified in her core, became a harshness in her reply. “What makes you think I want or need your help?”
“I just thought we...” he blinked again “...had an understanding.”
She opened her mouth with what would be a reflexively cold response, anything to get him not to press this. But it didn’t quite form, left her staring at him with her mouth dangling open like she’d just been struck between the eyes.
Mercifully, the lift door whisked open.
“We’re friends, of a sort, yes,” she forced out and turned, exited into the passage and followed its right branch towards the senior conference room. Over her shoulder, “But I don’t need any help.”
“Get in here!” Raker’s booming voice from the open door of the conference room drowned out whatever it was Varley tried to say.
The captain sat at the head of his table with Lieutenant Aval to his right, the latter looking pale purple. Raker’s scarred face crinkled into a grim sort of smile that only got uglier as Jaxan and Varley stepped through the door. A touch of his finger to the desktop controls closed it at their back and he leaned back in his seat, glowering at them, then at Aval. “All the trouble-makers in one place,” he grumbled.
“Dath...”
“All my officers who were in contact with this terrorist who was so persuasive they forgot their own duties,” he cut her off.
“Captain,” Varley began to protest, “I wasn’t—”
“Scott, shut up” Raker shook his head as Varley audibly snapped his jaw closed. His half glare turned back to Jaxan. “Our guest is secured?”
“Aye sir.”
“That, at least, is what I expected,” he replied bitterly. “I’m still awaiting a response from the Admiralty and I’m certain it will be a delight when it arrives.”
“What do you think they’re going to say?” Aval asked tentatively.
“If I guess correctly, they will reject Yssida’s asylum request out of hand,” he replied with finality. “We’ll arrive over Morvena in six hours. We have that long to figure out what we do with her. But more, I want to know why.” He looked around the table. “All of you were in contact with her.” He held up a hand as Aval started to speak. “Ylura, I’ve already heard what you have to say. Jaxan?”
She exchanged a glance with Varley, then Aval, across the table from her. “There’s more to this rebellion of theirs than any kind of anarchism, Captain,” she answered. “This is something more raw.”
Raker’s artificial right eye remained holographic blue and unmoved, but the left one narrowed. “You know this how?”
“This is going to sound strange, sir, but I was thinking of my dad.” She hurried to go on as confusion and annoyance warred for dominance of Raker’s expression. “Not long before he died, he was working a missing persons case. There were multiple disappearances in a neighboring district and they contacted him when the police gave up. He had little evidence and no one was talking, other than the families of the missing. But they were all members of the same church. He honed in pretty quickly on one of the pastors.”
Aval frowned. “A...Master?”
“Not in the same way your Shala work, no. But a man of influence in the community, to be sure. Dad started tailing him, finding inconsistencies in his stories, periods in his schedule when he just disappeared.”
“What did he find?” Raker asked.
“Nothing. He passed before he could finish the work. But a couple months later, some enterprising detective got curious, thanks to some clues dad had left him, and the police raided the pastor’s residence.” She remembered getting the holo-message from Sanctuary, the cop—who’d been a rookie under Dad. “Tearing up the floors, they found the bodies.”
Aval’s purple hue blanched even further, to the point she was nearly mauve. Varley gulped and Raker’s jaw worked.
“Well, we’ve already got plenty of bodies, Lieutenant,” the captain said as the resulting silence stretched. “No mystery there.”
“It wasn’t so much the literal story, Captain. It was the sense that not all is as it seems here. Something foul is motivating this rebellion.” Jaxan met Aval’s stare when the half-Morvenan looked up at her. “It was the sense that Yssida is trying to get someone to tear up the floor boards.”
“The sense?” Aval asked.
“It wasn’t an intrusion, exactly.” Jaxan paused. All the ghostly snatches of Dad; were those her? Where those Yssida’s work? She clenched her teeth, hated that suddenly she wasn’t so sure. “I think...I was somehow open to it. It was a cry for help.”
Raker stiffened in his seat and leaned forward. “Is she in contact now?”
“Not that I can tell.”
“Jaxan, I don’t want you in contact with the subject again without Lieutenant Aval present.” He pivoted to the half-human officer, pointed accusingly. “And this is what I was telling you already. There’s no telling who else she’s influenced onboard. I begin to wonder if it wouldn’t have been safer to hand her over. She could foment a rebellion on the ship!”
“If she wanted to do that, she would already have tried,” Aval retorted. “She might be that powerful.”
“Jesus,” Varley groaned.
Raker snorted. “I think I’ll leave that out of my report to the Admiralty. Gah, the sooner we’re returned to Morvena, the better!”
“Which I’m starting to think is exactly what she wanted,” Aval told him.
Jaxan froze and glanced at Varley again, who was shaking his head and mouthing some silent curse. Raker leaned back in his chair, absorbing that. “Explain.”
“The Counts said the T’Sona wanted to air their grievances to the whole galaxy. There aren’t any kind of freedom of speech protections in Unity law, like there is in the Republic. So, the Council of Colors can suppress anything. Tahna was clearly hoping to break through that with her hostage demands.” Aval shrugged. “When that failed, she had to find another tactic.”
“You’re saying we’ve been duped into ferrying her back to Morvena so she can shout it from the rooftops?” Jaxan squawked.
“I’d say it was desperation more than any sort of a plan,” Aval answered her. “Captain, I need to speak with her again.”
“Out of the question,” Raker snapped. “This situation is conflicted enough, as it is.”
“And it’s not like the Council is just going to give her a forum to reveal whatever it is she intends to reveal,” Varley put in.
“Which is what?” Jaxan asked Aval, leaning over the table towards her. “Do we know that?”
The half-Morvenan squirmed in her seat, almost seemed to fight herself. “She attests to widespread abuse, both of power and of persons, in the Shala Order.”
“Damn,” Varley breathed. “That’s a can of worms!”
“It is, indeed, Commander.” Aval nodded. “Shala goes beyond any kind of religion. It’s the glue holding Morvenan society together, has been since freedom from the Old Kings. More, it holds together the Unity. Despite the politics and differences between the worlds, the Colors, Shala extends across all, a shared experience, a shared consciousness.” She suddenly sat stiffly upright in her seat, as though pricked by a sharp object. “The Festival of Infinity approaches!”
Raker frowned. “The great Pan-Morvenan holiday?
“That, too, must have been part of her scheme!”
Varley was shaking his head, looking back and forth between them. “She planned to smear the state religion on its most important holiday?”
“It’s not a state religion,” Aval replied with heat that was right on the edge of insubordination. Obviously realizing the emotion of her response, she quickly moderated her tone. “But, yes, Commander, that’s the gist of it.”
Jaxan chuckled grimly. “And we’re bringing her back to the heart of Morvenan culture with an armed escort.”
“Gah.” Raker turned fully to Aval. “Ylura, we can’t hold her.”
“We have to!” she pled. “At least long enough to learn the truth of her accusations.”
“And what if that truth is a bomb waiting to go off and tear the Unity apart?” he answered. “Or drive some of them into another camp? This is exactly what we came here to prevent! Sanctuary can’t have a neutral state collapse into anarchy on its flank. The state of galactic affairs cannot be allowed to worsen for the Republic” something inexplicable crossed his scarred features, some inner rage Jaxan couldn’t interpret “not for one person.”
“Captain...”
“No matter who,” he added with finality.
The air between them crackled with tension that elevated even beyond the situation. A kind of hurt pulsed between them. But Jaxan was thinking more on the shade of her father, who even then flitted about the corners of room, never quite seen when she tried to follow his movements, pin him to a corner. Sneaky. And, suddenly, sneaky was meaning, and a plan rapidly-forming. “Captain,” she spoke up, “perhaps there’s a way to at least verify some of this.” She looked at him. “And later make the evidence known to concerned parties in a less public fashion.”
Raker frowned at her thoughtfully. “Channeling a little bit of the private detective, yourself, Jaxan?”
“Maybe,” she chuckled. “I assume with the hostage crisis passed, shore leave might be extended, down to Morvena, while Tenacity reprovisions and you sort out the diplomatic situation?”
“That’s so.” His frown turned up to a tentative smile. “Why?”
“Some sight-seeing, is all,” she replied. “Perhaps get a look at important Shala locations” she looked over at Aval “maybe even places of importance to our subject.”
“You’re going to spy,” she said.
“With suggestions from you, I’m thinking of it more as a self-guided tour.”
“I’m going with you!” Varley declared.
“For something like this, I’ll work better alone.”
“No,” Raker cut her off with a raised hand. “I agree with Scott. Alone, something could happen and we’d have no chance of knowing what became of you.”
Jaxan pinched her lips together, could feel Varley’s satisfied smirk on the side of her face. “That’s an order?”
Raker leaned back in his seat, folded his arms. “None of this is an order,” he said after a moment “or even a suggestion. I can’t condone any of whatever it is you think you’re going to do. And if it goes sour” he looked as coldly inflexible as a worn marble bust “you’re on your own. Am I very clear on this?”
“I should go, too,” Aval said hurriedly.
“Out of the question,” Raker replied with a chopping motion. “That is an order. You would absolutely draw attention.” He grinned uncomfortably. “Besides, I’m going to need you with me to navigate this imbroglio.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Jaxan said.
“Don’t thank me, Lieutenant,” he answered, and his voice was as inhuman as the holographic gleam out of his right artificial eye. “If you get in over your head, I may have to leave to the wolves.
***
ROUGAN STOOD AT THE workstation by the Reflex Furnace, but rather than query it on engine statuses, he brought up a feed from the ship’s library functions. Taking the sensor wand he’d brought back from the station from his pocket, he touched it to the console and waited as the devices mated and exchanged data. Schemata materialized in the air over the station.
“Let’s see where you’ve been,” he muttered and, setting the wand aside, began typing.
The first few records and the display of the Jumper-class transport in its original configuration were little surprise. The type was still in circulation on a number of Republic worlds, almost ubiquitous, even if no longer in manufacture. The Fleet had produced them as fast, light packets. The Drop Corps had modified them as assault boats, but found them too flimsy for the work and canceled them in favor of sturdier designs.
Someone else had made this particular Jumper a lot sturdier, though, with their modifications. As Spencer had noted, she’d received bigger, almost ridiculously overdone engines. More, she’d been given ablative plate for armor and bracing for her chassis. Someone had turned her into something closer to what the Drop Corps might have favored.
Pain pulsed in Rougan’s temples and he paused, ran a hand across a brow greasy with a film of cool sweat. Damn. He hadn’t slept, despite exhaustion, had come down here, rather than stare at the ceiling of his quarters. The damned spidery images waited when he closed his eyes. And Kevin was there, now, grinning his young-kid grin with no idea of the killers that scuttled and waited for him in the blackness of space.
The headache begged for a remedy; so did the visions.
Rougan glanced over his shoulder. It was the graveyard shift. Only a handful of spacers worked the thrumming space of Main Engineering. Vekkla had the command, this hour, but was up in the access chute of one of the Hypernaughts, checking on some anomaly. Rougan had a moment or two.
His hand darted for the flask, always weighing in the right pocket, now. It was the homebrew he distilled from fermented Kamalon mushrooms tonight; sharp stuff, with a slight psychedelic edge that maybe wasn’t a good idea, with the nightmares flitting through his consciousness. But, damn, his skull roared for something.
He uncorked the brew hastily, using his bulk to hide the motion from the rest of the compartment, and took a quick sip. Liquid heat basted its way across his palate and down his throat, an agonizing-pleasurable current. He didn’t quite wince, suppressed a cough at the smoky warmth. Whew! Potent mix, this time. And damned if the jolt of it didn’t clear the ache from his skull. But the rags of imagery remained; spidery shapes, surrounding the naïvely-smiling vision of his son.
“Commander?”
Rougan fumbled the flask, mostly corked, back into his pocket. A spatter of the brew heated the back of his hand as he stuffed it away. The brown smell of it tickled the nostrils, couldn’t possibly be missed—not coming from his breath, too. But Rougan forced a smile gamely and turned to the voice.
Vekkla hung, partly suspended by one tentacle as it came down from the port dorsal Drive chute. Fluidly, the Xokan settled to the deck on all but two of its appendages. These wound together into something that approximated the human folding of arms.
“Lieutenant,” Rougan replied, turning to him and wiped his mouth with the back of a sleeve. “How go your checks on the Number One?”
“All is as it should be,” the Xokan replied with a slight darkening of its flesh that Rougan knew meant concern. “Were you checking up on me, sir?”
And Rougan realized, with a rush of relief, that the cephalopod’s concern was that its superior didn’t trust it to its own work—why else would he be up in Engineering during this forsaken shift? He smiled. “Not, at all, Vekkla.” He gestured at the holograms over the workstation behind him. “Couldn’t sleep, so I was cramming.”
The Xokan sidled up beside him, its multi-eyes scanning the schemata. “The terrorists’ boarding craft.”
“Mm-hmm.” Rougan touched the hologram and spun it in midair to give them a rotating view of it. “It’s almost not a Jumper-series, anymore, with the all the modifications.”
The cephalopod reached up a tentacle to halt the turn of the image, caused one of the oversized engine nacelles to blink and throw out a sub-display. “That is interesting.”
“What is?”
“I know that model,” the Xokan replied. “Those are original Tee’cliks. I studied them in primary, before acceptance to the Academy.” It turned its eyes to Rougan. “They were standard on Xokan naval vessels, before we folded our fleet into that of the Republic. They are actually more efficient than a Sanctuarian design of comparable size, but far more expensive to manufacture.”
Rougan grunted. “Someone went to a lot of trouble to bolt two largely incompatible systems together.”
“Not so incompatible, apparently,” Vekkla pointed out. “They actually compliment the chassis reasonably well, if being a bit too much.”
“But why?” Rougan shook his head. “Why go to so much effort when there are black market engines that would have served as a retrofit, just as well? These are supposed to be terrorists, boot-strapping ships together. But doing it this way had to have been way more time-intensive, and expensive.”
“I cannot say I have the mindset of a terrorist, sir.”
Rougan chortled. “Me, neither.” He scratched his chin. “It’s almost like someone wanted to make certain this looked like a patchwork job, to hide the actual skill and source behind it.”
“Did you retrieve the registry numbers out of the compartment?” the Xokan asked.
“Yeah, right before we were run out.” Rougan typed a command into the station and waited for it to return the numbers from the scan he’d taken. “Now I’m wondering how real those are.” Holographic text spooled out before him, listing the vessel’s maintenance and ownership records. “Well, it’s legit, at least. Looks like it was auctioned off along with all the other ‘172 refits. Sold to a private security firm out of Fidelio. Sold a second time to the same world’s militia, about five years after. Then, whoa...” the text went red and flashed “...hijacked.”
“It was never recovered?”
“Obviously not.” The text cut off and a warning blinked. “But I can’t even check. The records after that point are restricted.”
“You cannot override?”
Rougan’s hands froze over the holo-wafer as he read the crimson warning. “SRA.” Just seeing the acronym chilled his blood. “Hell, no. Maybe Raker can.” He whistled softly. “Whatever happened to this girl, someone didn’t want anyone tracking her down.”
“That the ship ended up in the hands of terrorists would seem ample reason to hide the information.”
Rougan snorted at the obviousness of it. “I suppose.”
“Sir?” The Xokan’s whispy voice acquired an extra whistle, indicating the cephalopod’s discomfort.
“Wha...?” Rougan started to turn to him, then felt the dampness from his pocket, the warm-cold of the flask leaking from within. “Ah, hell!” He darted his hand in, found the fatigue lining quite soaked, then paused and scowled at the Xokan. “Well, this looks...” he sighed and pulled the hand out empty, gave it a shake to loosen droplets of the homebrew “...about as bad as it looks.”
The cephalopod’s folded-together tentacles writhed in and out around each other, a gesture Rougan didn’t understand but interpreted as awkward. “Perhaps you would like to clean up, Commander?” it suggested.
“Yeah.” Rougan looked himself over, shook his head. “Yeah, probably. I, ah...well, you tell whomever you think you need to tell, Lieutenant.” He shrugged, didn’t have enough pride to even get mad or try to deny the reality. “It’s my problem, not yours.”
The Xokan worked its tentacles together a moment longer, then unclasped them. “It is not problem, sir.” The color around its eye-rows darkened and it shuffled closer, voice lowered to a near-whisper. “That said, know that the Xoka have their share of chemical dependencies, if it is something you would like to discuss.”
“I don’t have a problem,” Rougan retorted—too quickly. He looked at the stain spreading down his pant leg and snorted again—at his own ridiculousness. “It’s nerves, you see?”
“I do.”
Rougan couldn’t tell if the officer was mocking him or simply following with that almost-too-literal phrasing its species had when speaking in Sanctuary Standard. “The run back from Crossroads was rough,” he explained. “We lost a lot of good people...lost your predecessor, another Xokan.”
The shading about Vekkla’s eyes darkened another shade. “I knew Lieutenant Zillix. They were a few years behind me at the Academy, but there are not so many of our kind in the Service, yet. I mourned them.”
“I’m afraid we’ll be mourning more,” Rougan replied. “A lot more.” Kevin returned to his thoughts, and was again being slowly surrounded, slowly cocooned by those arachnid nightmare-shapes. “Do you have any offspring, Vekkla?”
The Xokan’s colors lightened abruptly and its eyes squeezed shut. A rhythmic wheezing escaped its breathing slits and it started to shake. For a moment, Rougan thought the cephalopod was convulsing. But then he realized what was really happening.
“Is something...funny?” Rougan stiffened. “I’m sorry, did I offend?”
“No, no, Commander.” Vekkla had to pause for another moment to get what obvious now as laughter under control. “Though, I would advise you not to ask another Xokan that question, at least not that way. To do so is to suggest they have reached advanced age, which is the time when my kind typically become fertile. The stringing of a birth-chain, of eggs, typically occurs near the end of life.”
Rougan’s shoulders sagged. “You’re saying I just told you look old.”
“Very, Commander.”
Rougan opened and closed his mouth twice before settling upon, “Well, certainly not how I meant it.”
“Quite alright, sir.” The Xokan brushed his shoulder with a tentacle. “I presume you do have offspring?”
“A couple. Humans can reproduce at young ages, obviously. Many make the mistake of doing so.” He frowned, thinking momentarily on his failures back on New Dalton. “My eldest is at the Academy now. I pray we have this mess with Golgotha straightened out before he has a chance to taste the fire. But he’s starting his fourth year so...”
“I understand,” Vekkla said when Rougan trailed off. It then made a sound like the clearing of a throat. Rougan glanced over his shoulder and noted a couple spacers drifting close in the course of their duties. “You should clean up, sir,” Vekkla said. “I have the shift.” It set its tentacle upon his arm again. “I do not believe we will need to speak on your error later.”
“That’s good.” Rougan smiled and clasped the cephalopod’s appendage. “I appreciate it.” He pulled away and started for the exit.
“But, please, sir,” Vekkla whispered, holding him up for a moment, “if you would benefit from talking, rather than consuming, do not hesitate to come and find me.”
Rougan nodded in thanks.
“All Xokans understand loss.”
***
YLURA PUT AN ELBOW on the armrest of her seat the in the executive shuttle’s passenger compartment and leaned towards the viewport. Tenacity loomed above, but they were quickly falling away from her as Morvena swelled beneath, a vast expanse of blue-green swirl not dissimilar to Sanctuary. It had hardly been six months, but the last time she’d had this view seemed far more distant.
“Not exactly the homecoming you’d expected?”
She looked away from the window at Dath, seated across from her in the opposite-facing row of seats. The compartment could seat ten, but it was just the two of them. She smiled slightly. “I hadn’t expected to come home, at all.”
He nodded and looked out the window near him, face crinkling into a smile that would have been wistful, had it not been for the scars. “I once upon a time expected to make this trip with you.”
Ylura started to ask him what he meant by that, but held herself up. Dath spoke of their shared past, of course. He spoke of the closeness that had been between them before the disaster of the Fenris, before time and hurt had settled between them. And maybe he simply meant a friendly shore leave together, visiting Morvena as young officers—colleagues.
But meeting his mismatched stare, the mournful flicker to his good eye, she knew he meant quite more than that.
“Captain Raker,” the voice of the shuttle pilot crackled over the intercom, “we’re about to hit the atmosphere. Approximately twelve minutes to Prysma City, after that.”
The emotion cooled in Dath’s eye and he leaned back in his seat. “Very good, Ensign. Thank you.”
The viewports darkened as the fields outside them polarized in preparation for the shuttle’s entry into Morvenan air, shields against what would be fiery glare. The thrum of maneuvering fields reverberated through Ylura’s boots and the quiver of the shuttle’s increasingly rough course joined it, despite inertial dampening fields. She experienced a flutter of fright, completely unwarranted, but always present in these moments. Something could always go wrong.
So much already had.
“Have you had word from Fleet Command?”
“Yeah,” he growled. “They’re livid. I’ll be lucky to get out of this without a court-martial.”
“You don’t really mean that.”
He smirked at her. “They are angry. Furious, even. But the Admiralty has referred the matter on to the diplomatic corps. That’s a hold up, too, though. With the Archonal elections and the turnover in the government, the Republic doesn’t have a currently confirmed ambassador to the Unity. And the previous one had already departed.” He pointed a thumb at himself. “So, you’re looking at Sanctuary’s senior diplomatic representative in this crisis. And he’ll be facing the Council of Colors alone.”
Reflexively, she reached across the space to touch his thigh. “Not alone.”
His smile warmed to something more genuine. “Right.” He put his hand over hers, patted it. “Of course.”
They sat in silence for a time, listening to the faint roar of atmospheric entry. But it was already falling away and, as Dath removed his hand from hers and half-turned to the window, the polarization faded and brilliance washed in. The shuttle was streaking down into a late afternoon sky over the gold-foil glitter of Morvena’s Sea of Thardu. A land mass darkened the horizon, began to fill the distance, glittering here and there with the glass and metal of a city.
Ylura tensed. “Dath, we can’t just hand Tahna over to them.”
“We may have to do that very thing, Ylura,” Dath replied grimly and met her gaze. “We’re one ship, alone, in what is still not an allied system. The Unity has the right to take her, probably will after the Fleet gets back to me. We can only delay this so long.”
She watched as the shuttle skimmed down over the sea and a cityscape began to take shape ahead. “Something terrible is happening here.”
“You had no sense of this in all your years here?” Dath folded his arms before him and his voice had an incredulous note. “If this abuse has been going on all this time, how did no one know of it?”
She snorted. “You’re telling me such things have never happened on Sanctuary?”
“Constantly!” Dath chuckled darkly. “Sleaze is practically assumed in Sanctuarian high society!”
“Then why assume another culture doesn’t have its problems?”
“Well, I’d always assumed...” he shrugged and squirmed a little “...the bonds between Morvenans, the mental ties.” His good eye flashed with sudden emotion. “When you and I have been...in contact...the intensity...”
“Telepathy increases a being’s abilities to obscure the truth, Dath; not the other way around,” she answered. “In some ways, my mother’s folk are more secretive than most. They learned to be so from the Old Kings.”
The waves of Thardu were breaking against something below. A long row of piles sunk into the sea, reinforced with artificial concrete islands. Upright above these against the brilliant cerulean backdrop, ivory stalks extended, seemingly fragile. They ended in mighty blades that turned in graceful sweeps against the sky. The Great Wind Farms, a triumph of a society that had conquered nature as well as the mind.
And a flawed one, nevertheless.
“As to this affair,” Ylura went on, “the Gray Ring has never enjoyed a good reputation, but as part of the Shala Order, it’s been above official reproach. There have always been stories. But the Order would have had to have known about them.” A sudden panic clenched its icy claws within her. “Dath, the repercussions of that, were it true...”
Wrinkles bunched at the corners of his eyes. “Scandalous.”
“Disastrous.”
“Have you been in contact with your uncle?”
“Very little.” She shook her head. “I’m sure matters with the Council are quite ugly right now.”
He tightened a little and cleared his throat. “And have you been in contact with her?”
Ylura scowled at him. “You told me not to, Captain. So, no.” She looked back out the window, momentarily too annoyed to meet his gaze. “Besides, she has closed off her aura. That I can see, like a dark spot on a holoscreen.” She could sense it even now, calming her mind and extended it across distances that were not so far to Shala. Seven hundred auras—souls—she could feel warming the mass of Tenacity above them in orbit. But the one she sought; no. “She has entered the Deep Trance.”
“Some kind of meditation?”
“One that marshals all mental powers against any intrusion, like the shields of Tenacity.” She made herself look back at Dath, and didn’t bother to hide the fury on her face. “I suspect she’s preparing herself to be turned over to the Ring.”
Dath didn’t offer an answer or even a deflective quip to that, pressed his lips together and looked out his viewport. The coast of Morvena’s largest continent, Eddras, was rushing towards them across a white-rippled bay. Metal jags rose up against the sky in dazzling colors, a contrast to any stern gray metal and brownstone city of Sanctuary. Even having seen it many times, Ylura still felt her breath stolen away at what seemed like a wavefront of rainbow spray frozen in time.
“Prysma City, I presume?” Dath murmured.
“Heart of all Morvena-kind in the galaxy,” Ylura answered.
The shuttle nosed up to circle the city from above. As the waterfront fell behind, they coasted over what height showed them were matched-color patterns, buildings of like schemes, marching out to the distant suburbs of the metropolis. It gave the appearance of a monstrous color wheel, whole districts in Orange, Red, Green, and so on, and riots of colorful disunity between theses.
“Each of the Colors has its enclave,” Ylura said, “and the city filled in around them.”
Dath frowned at a smudge like a grayish stain, trailing out into the bay. “That’s not so colorful. What is that?”
Ylura suppressed a shiver. The structure wedged like a splinter caught in a gouge, angling slightly askew from where it had planted itself. “They nearest translation of its name is the Citadel. It was an Old King warship, overpowered by its Morvenan slaves and brought down on the planet. The survivors formed the core of the rebellion here. Much of what was useful about it was stripped away. But the structure remained. It was the central headquarters of the Shala Order for many ages.” She didn’t quite keep the shiver away now. “They’ve mostly relinquished it to the Gray Ring.”
“Like your Master Voadd?”
“Not my Master,” Ylura said quickly. “But the Ring has grown in influence within the Order rapidly as events in the broader galaxy have grown threatening.”
Dath squinted and leaned towards his window. “Is that...?”
Straining to see past him, Ylura nodded. “The Orb of Infinity, yes.”
At the central point of the city, where the colored slashes of buildings met, a great space opened. At its heart, catching a glint of the sun moving past its zenith, a monstrous sphere of what Ylura knew to be solid limestone quarried and fashioned to nearly circular perfection by extreme labor rotated slowly in a cavity a city block in circumference. The Orb, itself towered ten stories. Once, massive pumps had filled the cavity with water to keep the Orb in constant, grinding motion; now energy fields accomplished the same with significantly less impact.
“The original was purportedly much smaller,” Ylura said. “The Shala Order commissioned this one’s construction centuries ago, so that none would be out of its sight in the city. City ordinances ensure open lanes through to it.” A glint of white caught her eye, just north of the Orb complex. “And that’s the Spire” she pointed “where the Council meets.”
Clashing against the profusion of color around it, a tower of white shot up from the surrounding cityscape, swelling like the head of a great flower at its cap. The petals of this opened into bulges of buildings and pads for hover traffic to land. A great dome at the center dominated all; the Council House.
“And where we’re heading,” Dath muttered and touched an armrest control. “Ensign, we’re all clear?”
“Crystal clear, sir,” the pilot replied cheerily.
“Excellent.” Dath nodded as the shuttle swept in for one of the outer landing pads. “Looks like we’ve got a welcoming committee.” Tiny figures gathered insect-like at the edge of the platform, where it extended into the main complex. A few glinted with the armor of Chrome Guards.
“One more thing,” Dath said, turning back to her. “Rougan is asking me to give him access to some restricted records. I was a little surprised to find I don’t have access.” He keyed the armrest again and a holographic text box popped up. Characters at the center pulsed crimson. “Is this something your new role permits you to decrypt?”
She stiffened, both at the encryption prompt, which she’d come to know well, and at Dath’s biting tone. “It does,” she replied at frowned at him, “And I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m a spook.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You’re not an operative of the SRA?”
She pressed her lips into a tight line to hold in words before she could control them. Finally, with a slight tremor to her voice, she said, “You know me.”
To his credit, he flinched a little, even seemed ashamed. “I do,” he said slowly. “Which is why I’m worried. I fear I shouldn’t even have allowed you down here.”
“There is no one who knows this world better.”
“Too well, many would say.”
“Then why let me come?” she snapped at him. If she was to be of any help to anyone at all, she couldn’t have him tiptoeing around her. “You’re the Captain. Give your orders.”
Dath flinched again and appeared to retreat momentarily into himself. The shuttle was touching on the pad and pages in the livery of House Green were approaching. The ship groaned as it settled upon its landing gears and pressurization hissed, caused the ears to pop.
“It’s just...” Dath began, then chortled grimly. “No more surprises, alright?”
“I can’t promise that,” Ylura told him.
He met her gaze and his natural eye matched the artificial one with its inhumanity.
“Try.”
***
CHROME GUARDS ESCORTED Dath and Ylura to the heart of a vast, domed chamber that looked like the hollowed-out inside of some great gourd. Segmented walls curved up to a peak slitted with windows to allow sunlight through. This pooled at the center of the room, on an open floor looked upon by tiered slopes of couches.
Dozens of Morvenan eyes glowed down upon him as he was marched to the center with Ylura at his side, bathed in radiance that made him feel like a bug cooking under a magnifying glass. A glance about showed him the tiers of onlookers divided by colored flooring, each corresponding to one of the great Houses. Arrakka was obvious, seated amongst the Orange, Avla with the Green, Gorrod glowering down from the Red. Figures in the white of the Shala Order circulated here and there; Dath noted Master Voadd taking a spot in the Red, near Gorrod.
The chamber settled as Dath stiffened his back and folded his arms behind it, noting Ylura aping the motions to his left. Unlike any Republic meeting—or really any—he’d attended, the Council of Colors was quiet. Only the shuffling of bodies to couches or against one another in haste disturbed what was otherwise silence. But a pinprick of headache gave him the sense of air charged with meaning—as the very air particles vibrated to the telepathic cacophony his human senses could not pick up.
“Captain Dath Raker,” a voice spoke up in the soft-hoarse tones of a throat not often exercised. A Morvenan woman in robes of blue with linear streaks of white in her otherwise jet hair stood from the lower tiers, near the floor. “Republic of Sanctuary Navy, commanding the starship, DN-125 Tenacity.”
Dath smiled almost combatively—couldn’t help himself, feeling trapped here and pissed off by it. “That’s me.”
“You will present yourself.”
Frowning in confusion, he shot a glance at Ylura, who nodded meaningfully forward. Not certain of the significance, he took a step closer to the speaker; then another one, until Ylura cleared her throat and he halted.
“We are the Council of Colors, Captain,” the Morvenan in blue said, voice cracked slightly as she tried to raise it. “You will forgive us if our discourse in this place seems soft-spoken. We are not often in the presence of the non-attuned here. You will no doubt find this a contrast to the rowdier setting of your Sanctuarian Senate.”
“I’ll assume it means you actually accomplish work, Councilor,” Dath replied with a huge grin.
Silence greeted his quip and his flesh warmed. At least Arrakka smirked slightly. The rest regarded him in their utter quiet, visages expressionless, eyes simmering away like the glint of wolves’ catching the firelight on a particularly bleak night in his sub-arctic home district. He cleared his own throat and stiffened once more.
“The work of this day needs little prelude,” the Blue Countess resumed. “You are here to explain the actions of your crew to us and the detaining of what is, though certainly a criminal, still a citizen of the Unity.”
“I’ll presume the records of the action on Farside Station have already been shown,” Dath said and noted nods of acknowledgement to these words, at least. “Then you all know that the terrorist leader, Tahna Yssida, surrendered to a Republic Fleet storming party and promptly requested asylum. By our own Rules of Engagement and the Articles of—”
“Did she merge with your officers, Captain?” the Countess cut him off.
“I’m sorry?”
“Did the terrorist enter the minds of your troopers? We have on some authority, she did” the woman glanced up towards Voadd “influencing their human psyches.”
“She did communicate, obviously.”
“We would question these troopers.”
“I can, of course, present them here” Dath shook his head “but I don’t see the purpose of—”
“The purpose, Captain” now it was Gorrod cutting him off “is to demonstrate that this was another ploy by a miscreant well known to this Council to avoid the justice she has long evaded.” He stood now, surveying his peers before continuing. “Were it not for her mastery of Shala—her mastery of your non-Morvenan minds—your people would have promptly refused her desperate pleas and turned her over to the proper authorities.”
Dath had his mouth open to protest what was obviously a slur of his people. But Ylura had taken a step past him. “I communed with the subject, as well,” she declared. “And I can assure you she had no domination over me.”
“You, too, are well known to us, Ylura Aval,” the Blue Countess said in a note of disapproval that sent her a step into retreat, back to Dath’s side.
“And the dominion Yssida would have had over you requires little skill,” Gorrod sneered. “In fact, I will protest again her involvement in any of these hearings!”
“Your protests have already been addressed, Count,” Arrakka spoke up. “And they grow tiresome.”
“Councilors,” the Countess raised her own voice before Gorrod could counter, “we will hear from Captain Raker.” Gorrod settled grudgingly back into his seat.
“I trust my people, Councilors,” Dath resumed with a hint of anger. “They weren’t manipulated, any more than anyone else in this chamber would have been by an appeal to basic rights. The subject surrendered. To us. That put her in under the jurisdiction of the Republic, and under its protections.”
“This was a Unity operation in Unity territory,” Gorrod insisted.
“That we were requested to take the lead on, Count.” Dath hesitantly a beat before the honorific, just long enough to suggest disrespect he absolutely did feel.
“Can we assume an official diplomatic staff from the Republic is on its way?” Avla spoke up from his couch in the Green section. “With all due respect, Captain, it would be more appropriate.”
“And I agree with that, certainly,” Dath replied. “The Sanctuarian Department of State is working on that now.” He tried one of his more disarming smiles. “Until that is resolved, however, you have me.”
“And your judgement is to keep Tahna Yssida under guard aboard your ship?” Avla asked.
“Where we can guarantee her safety.”
The chamber rustled with the shifting of bodies in seats, an undercurrent of mingled discomfort and displeasure. Dath could almost feel the grumbling that a human audience would make, but the Morvenans did within their skulls.
“You suggest” Voadd stood from his couch “that her safety would be in peril planet-side?”
“She seems to believe so.”
“She’s a murderer, Captain,” Voadd said in a voice that iced the nerves. “The Council, I’m sure, would be happy to share the records of her many crimes with you. She has engaged in acts of terror that would match anything you faced against your Golgothan adversaries, of late.” His eyes narrowed and a venomous smile quirked the corner of his thin lips. “You’re so certain she has not worked upon your mind?”
Ylura stepped past Dath again, voice sharp. “Had she done so, I would have known, Master Voadd!”
The Morvenan’s smile pinched to a thin line and his eyes flashed nearly white. “I was addressing your Captain, child.”
Dath took a step forward, past Ylura, almost between her and the glare of Voadd. “If you would forgive a Sanctuarian turn of phrase, Master” he chuckled good-naturedly “I’m not that easy.”
Voadd settled back into his couch, shooting Gorrod a look.
“Captain,” the Blue Countess said, “allow us to be very clear; the situation as it currently stands is not tolerable to the Council or to the Unity. The poison of the T’Sona has already proven to be a threat to public order.”
“Every moment she is not in our hands, the instability grows,” Voadd declared. “By continuing to elude our grasp, by whatever means, she undermines the Unity. We already have problems enough.”
“Indeed, we do.” Gorrod shot back to his feet. “And I have said it to this Council many, many times already, those problems cannot be solved in the same old ways. This incident proves it!” He jabbed a finger down towards Dath and Ylura. “That off-worlders stand here, on the floor of the Council of Colors, dictating to us how we will treat our own internal problems proves that!”
“We asked the Republic here,” Arrakka snapped.
“You asked them here, Arrakka!” Gorrod retorted. “And you convinced others to join you in that! And House Red resisted, precisely because of the Republic’s tendency towards” he half-turned to Dath “heavy-handedness.”
“We are not here to resume the debate about nationalization, Count Gorrod,” the Blue Countess noted with exasperation.
“Maybe we should be!” Gorrod declared before she’d completely finished. He pivoted, arms out to either side beseechingly, looking across the Council. “Counts and Masters, I know you think me an alarmist, but our ancestors knew the shadow of empire, had felt the dark of the Old Kings upon their every day. That darkness creeps across our skies, once more, my friends. Some would tell us it comes in the form of the Star Empire of Golgotha, or the Venkalth, or perhaps nebulous threats we have yet to see. We of House Red often wonder if that shadow is born of more familiar sources, of a creeping dependence on trade partnerships” again he glowered meaningfully towards Dath “or alliances.”
“You would have us become that which once victimized us, Gorrod.” Arrakka was rising from his couch now, voice trembling with anger. “You cannot solve tyranny and terror by practicing it, yourself!”
“But we have them both in plenty now, do we not?”
“My good Counts,” Dath spoke into the argument, feeling something had to give, here, “the Republic has no desire to interfere in the middle of Unity matters. We are caught in the middle here. My ship is caught in the middle.”
“Perhaps it would settle nerves if Tahna Yssida were not being held on a starship that could leave at any time, Captain?” Voadd suggested snidely.
“House Green has served as a neutral party throughout these affairs, Captain,” Avla said, rising from his seat. “Maybe you would consider releasing the prisoner into our protection?”
The rumble of the Council’s discontent was audible now, but so too was the sense of needing to have a break in the impasse—any break. Avla was looking about for support, though likely he’d already sensed it building in his peers’ auras.
“I would consider it” Dath raised his voice sharply over the gasp from Ylura at his side “so long as she remains under Republic guard.” The rumble became very notable, at that, and he raised his voice higher. “At least until my superiors have had a chance to address Ydissa’s petition.”
The Blue Countess turned to Gorrod, then Avla and Arrakka. Notably, she didn’t exchange a glance with Voadd. A quick scan showed Dath that, though the Shala had their representatives on the Council, seated in obviously subordinate, advisory sports, Voadd was the only one in gray here. In fact, by the visible space many of the Councilors kept between him and themselves, it seemed likely his presence was as unusual as Dath and Ylura’s, this day.
“This will be acceptable,” the Countess declared. “Count Avla, you will make the arrangements?”
“We have secure facilities on the House Green compound, yes, Countess.”
“Very good.” She fixed Dath with that smoldering-ember stare again. “Captain, you will remain on-planet and coordinate. We will expect to meet you here, again, tomorrow, after the exchange has been completed. This is acceptable to you?”
Gah, like I have a choice. Dath forced an agreeable smile. “Of course, Countess.”
“Very good.”
And just like that, without the meandering ceremony of a human government, the Council began to break up. Gorrod and Voadd departed together, the latter casting a glance over his shoulder at Dath that iced his blood and pissed him off for it. Arrakka and Avla looked to be in intense telepathic communion, the pair of them motionless and locking gazes as others flowed out of the chamber around them.
“Dath...” Ylura began in a shaking voice.
“Let’s go,” he said before she could continue and strode for the exit.
“Dath,” she repeated, scurrying to catch up to his long-legged strides.
He said nothing until his gait had carried him past the ring of Chrome Guards lining the floor of the Council chamber, out into the semi-dark hall, slanting down towards the corridor ringing it. There he paused, certain they could still be monitored, by device or mind. But at least they were out of sight. He turned to her.
“This can’t be the answer!” she hissed before he could open his mouth.
He scowled at her. “You’ve got a better one?” She returned his expression mutely and he snorted. “I didn’t think so. This buys us a little time for Jaxan to do her snooping, at least.”
“Once Tahna’s down here, they’re never going to let her go.”
Dath pressed his lips into a thin line. “That may be. But I think she knows that, has accepted it. It’s her story that matters, isn’t it?”
“They are never going to allow her to speak openly.”
Dath glanced up and down the hall before whispering, “Then it’s up to us to make certain someone does for her.”
***
JAXAN STEPPED OFF THE ramp of the shuttle into the humid later afternoon of Morvena, struck by both the alienness of Prysma City’s sprawl and the mundanity of just another world’s sun smoldering against a coppery summer sky. It reminded her of South Solace, of Dad. And she saw him again, in the heat mirages of the landing pad in the heart of House Green’s complex.
She saw him again, and wondered if it was her or the prisoner putting him there.
“Think they got air conditioning?” Cho grumbled, stepping off the shuttle beside her. He wore full kit—a bit of theater, that; to show the Morvenans the Fleet meant business. And he looked miserable in its armored bulk.
She offered him a sardonic smile. “If they don’t” she gestured at his blaster rifle “just make some for yourself.”
He grunted and fingered the weapon as he eyed Crimson Guards approaching from the far side of the pad. “Feel like we’re getting dropped into a basket of snakes, Lieutenant.”
“Tenacity’s still in geosynchronous over the city,” Jaxan replied. “Anything goes haywire, she can bring down the hurt. Besides, these Morvenans are invariable polite. They’re not going to do anything.” She balled up a fist and rapped it on the man’s shoulder plate. “Just keep an eye on the subject.”
“She creeps me out.”
Jaxan saw the phantasm of her father scuttling about from behind the Chrome Guards as they halted and formed a semi-circle before the shuttle.
“I know what you mean.”
One of the Guards, an officer by the green sash and more ornate plate of his armor, stepped up. “Seventh Blade Umai, of the Guard and of Green. We are here to show you to the detention block.”
Jaxan thumped her chest in salute. “Very good.” She pivoted to Cho, began to ask him to bring Yssida out. But Ghath and another trooper already were.
Tahna paused at the top of the ramp, looking comically small with the Korthan and a burly human towering over her from behind. She closed her eyes and savored a deep breath of Morvenan air, smiled even. The expression didn’t falter as she took in the Guards awaiting her, or when her eyes turned toward Jaxan.
You’re making a mistake, baby, her father whispered at her ear. She glanced reflexively over her shoulder, but the phantom wasn’t there.
“Lieutenant...?” Cho whispered tightly.
Jaxan blinked and faced the Guard officer again, whose glowing eyes narrowed in expectation. “Petty Officer Cho and a detachment of our people will accompany the subject, as agreed.”
“Agreed,” Umai replied. “They will have full use of our facilities. They will, of course, be monitored.”
“Of course,” Jaxan answered coldly and shot Cho a look to keep whatever opinions he clearly had to himself.
It’s a mistake, Dad’s voice repeated in her head. These guys have no intent of ever letting that girl leave this place alive.
Rather than search for a specter she knew wasn’t really there, Jaxan turned back to Tahna, glared at her. Why me? There are others. Why are you picking on me?
Because you were open. The answer was still in Dad’s voice, but it was Tahna’s stare that Jaxan saw. Because truth, more than politics, matters to us, baby. There’s a big knot of crazy that needs unwinding, here, and no one else is interested in doing it. Just like any other town.
Rather than address the voice anymore, Jaxan said to Cho, “Signal as soon as you’re set up. Maintain regular checks.”
“Aye, ma’am.”
Jaxan met Umai’s gaze. “We’ll expect good treatment of our people.”
The Morvenan’s expression crinkled into something that might have been offense. “Your soldiers will have an unremarkable stay.”
Jaxan nodded and watched as Cho led the detachment clanking down off the ramp with Yssida in their midst. The Chrome Guards fell in around them in flanking files. A dome on the far side of the pad slitted open and a figure in white stepped out—one of those Shala priestly-types. Jaxan tensed instantly. But at least she didn’t see one in the gray garb, like that Voadd creep.
Truth matters, Jaxan thought and knew Tahna would be hearing. We’ll see to that.
“Not exactly the vacation spot I had in mind,” a voice said from within the shuttle. Varley stepped out into the sunlight, holding up a hand and squinting. “And certainly not the welcome I usually expect.”
Jaxan smirked at him. He was already in undress blues and she could see his duffle bag, bunched in a back corner of the shuttle cabin. “If they knew what we had in mind, Commander, it’d be even less welcoming.”
He sighed. “All work and no play, I see, Lieutenant?”
She watched as Cho and company led Tahna into the dome, were swallowed by shadow. The figure in white, standing beside the entrance, turned the twin sparks of its gaze her way and a throb of headache blossomed behind her eyes. She’d been around enough of this telepathy, now, to know that was no coincidence.
“Oh,” she grumbled through clenched teeth, watching the priest scuttle into the dome, “we’re going to play, alright.”
***
THE BRIDGE OF A GOLGOTHAN ship was always a quiet place, but Devourer’s was maddeningly so as Heath reclined in his command chair, waiting. The whole crew, the whole ship waited, idling at as low a power setting as practical, right on the border of Unity-claimed space. Found there, they could be fired upon with impunity, an unauthorized intruder. Found there, they would upend everything they’d worked for to this point.
But this was where the mind-witches had insisted on meeting.
A ping from the Tactical Station sent Keitel nearly jumping from his seat and a flinch throughout the bridge staff. Heath, himself, stiffened upright and leaned forward, knuckles blanching as they gripped his armrests. A streak of stirred tachyons was making a tail across the main screen as a starship decelerated from Void Speed.
“What do we have?” Heath demanded.
“Morvenan heavy cruiser, Brother-Captain,” Keitel answered from his station. A schematic materialized to underscore his point. “Engine signature is consistent with what we’ve observed to be House Red’s command ship.”
Heath relaxed very slightly, settled back in his chair. “Punctual, as always.” He watched the vessel slow into a position several thousand kilometers distant, but point blank for most of both ships’ energy cannon. “Lock all weapons,” he growled, “targeting their Drives.”
Mueller, standing near Tactical turned to him in shock. “Sir?”
“Do it.” Heath smirked.
Keitel shot Mueller a look and proceeded to key a series of commands into his console. Targeting diagrams haloed the newly-arrived icon on the display and strobed crimson. The Morvenan, who had been coasting leisurely to a stop, abruptly pulsed her maneuvering fields, slamming to an almost immediate halt. Alarms warbled as the cruiser’s shields came up and its own targeting sensors painted the hull of Devourer in response.
“They’re hailing us, sir!” Bauer at the Communications station announced and flinched a little at something coming from his earbud. “They don’t sound pleased.”
“I’m sure,” Heath chuckled and gestured to the main screen. “Put it up.”
A squall of static preceded the resolution of pixels into an image of a Morvenan face, stretched into rage and alarm. “Stand down! It is us!”
Heath chortled and gestured to Keitel. The targeting halo vanished from the blip of the heavy cruiser and Heath stood from his seat, crossing his hands behind his back, and glowering at the hologram. “Count Krazmyb,” he sneered, “it is good to see you so well after your ordeal.”
“Spare me the pleasantries, Golgothan,” the Morvenan Count hissed back. “Your inadequate security preparations nearly cost us this whole plan, as well as my life!”
“Our security preparations?” Heath shook his head. “I wasn’t the one that insisted on a face-to-face meeting. This way really is much better, don’t you agree?”
“Starships are large affairs, their comings and goings always noted.” Krazmyb glanced behind him at someone on his bridge. “And crews get talkative.”
“You don’t even trust your own people now?”
“I trust nothing,” Krazmb growled and leaned forward close enough to the holographic pickup that Heath could count the brown speckles that lined his brow. “Events are accelerating. We must move more quickly than originally planned.” Small narrow teeth clenched between thin, dark purple lips. “We must conclude our arrangement.”
A flutter stirred in Heath’s gut and he felt the rustle of Mistress’ presence in the back of his skull. “How do you mean?”
“We must have the rest of the ships. Now.”
Daaaamian, the Mistress whispered. Heath mentally shook Her anxieties off, though. “Then our side of the bargain must be met, as well,” he insisted. “Do you have the supply?”
Krazmyb flinched at his suddenly savage tone. “Not with us. We are gathering them...” another flinch “...it.”
“Then why are you wasting our time with a meeting?” Heath growled. “Especially this close to Unity space? We risk all by being spotted.”
“This is near House Red territory,” Krazmyb scoffed.
“And, as you said, you can’t trust your own people.” Heath unfolded his hands and raised a pointed finger to the hologram. “We will have the supply, Count, or the exchange is off.”
“You will have it,” the Morvenan replied. “But there is another complication.”
“Tenacity,” Heath guessed. “We know.” He made a disdainful face. “We saw her rescue you.”
“It’s more than that,” Krazmyb went on hastily. “My brother has made it known to me that the Sanctuarians got a look at one of the ships the T’Sona hijacked from the docks at Zadomir.”
Heath grimaced at the reminder. In an operation that had gone otherwise according to plan, the raid on the ship-repurposing operations at Zadomir had been an ugly shock. The T’Sona insurgents had seized the frigate and the transport and had aimed for more, but Golgothan resistance had prevented it. Heath’s people had seen to it that the rebels lost much of their cadre to gain the ships.
“Even if Yssida doesn’t talk,” Krazmyb said, “the Republic may learn of its operations.”
“Then we’ll clear the docks.”
The Count’s eyes narrowed to glowing slits. “Perhaps there is opportunity there, though.”
Heath frowned. “Go on.”
“My cousin can see to it that the Republic learns of it now, on our terms.”
Heath glanced at Mueller, off to his side and arching his eyebrows in curiosity. “You mean bait Tenacity into coming to investigate?”
“Where you will be waiting,” Krazmyb finished for him. “Zadomir is in Wild Space. Anything can happen there. No star nation has claim to any of its worlds.”
“With Tenacity out of the way” Heath settled back into his seat, crossed one leg over the other, folded his hands together before him thoughtfully “you will be free to execute your plans.”
“We will still need those ships,” the Count pressed. “We don’t have enough to stand on our own, yet.”
“Then we are back where we started. I am going to need the supply.”
“We will have transports sent. They will meet you here. You will bring the remaining ships with you.”
The Mistress’ lust and anxiety swirled sickeningly in Heath’s soul, but he forced them down. “Unacceptable. You will bring them to us at Zadomir.”
“There is already too much suspicion about the place. Yssida may already be revealing her knowledge of your operations there.”
“And as you say,” Heath snapped, “we must conclude our arrangement, anyway. We’ll be abandoning Zadomir as soon as we have the shipment and you have your ships.”
The Morvenan seemed to consider. Or perhaps the he-witch was attempting to reach out across space with his mind. The seething presence of the Mistress was suddenly reassurance rather than distraction to Heath.
“That will suffice,” Krazmyb said finally. “Make certain you finish off Tenacity. With her flying about, she gives the opposition on the Council confidence in the Unity. With her out of the picture, and with the shock of our new fleet, they will have to accept the terms of House Red’s secession from the Unity” he held up his chin haughtily “and our new empire.”
It took serious willpower for Heath not to sneer at the purple-skinned simpleton and his pretensions. “All as planned, Count.”
Krazmyb settled back into his seat on the bridge of his command ship. “Good luck to you, then, Golgothan. It is unlikely I will see you again.”
Heath bowed his head just enough for a veneer of respect that he certainly did not feel. “That will be well for both of us.”