Martinez walked in the direction of the lounge, thinking perhaps to ask Ari Abacha’s bartender to make him something cold and fizzy to accompany a sandwich. He’d just been in the ship’s gym lifting weights until he ached from his neck to his arches, and he felt he could do with some calories, not to mention relaxation. Seven days remained before Tork’s coup, and he had nothing to do but organize activities that would prove irrelevant no matter what happened at Harzapid or Zanshaa.
He was considering his sandwich—crispy bread, cheese melted perfectly over shaved breast meat from a Hone-bar phoenix—and then he heard raised voices from the lounge.
“You worthless,” Chandra Prasad shouted from inside, “you lazy, you utterly supine waste of protein! What excuse do you give yourself even for breathing, you hapless, useless, fumble-witted—”
Without thought Martinez pivoted on his heel and began walking away. He had been through enough scenes with Chandra himself to never want to be in the vicinity of one ever again.
He decided he’d have Alikhan bring him a sandwich in his quarters.
Chandra’s voice pursued him. “I don’t even know why I bother to insult you!” she said. “No useful idea could possibly enter that impenetrably thick skull of yours!” And then she gave a snarl, a sound all too reminiscent of a Torminel in a fight. The snarl was followed by a crash of broken glass, and Chandra stormed past Martinez, red metallic hair swinging, her pointed chin high. As she passed Martinez, she glared at him over her shoulder, as if he were somehow responsible for the state of affairs, and then she stomped on. Martinez slowed, considered again the matter of his sandwich, and then turned back toward the lounge.
There he found Ari Abacha stretched on his chaise longue, his cocktail in his hand. His bartender was fussing over him, wiping drink off his face and uniform. Smashed glassware ground under the bartender’s feet.
“What was that about?” Martinez asked.
Abacha looked at him wide-eyed. “I haven’t the faintest idea, Gare,” he said. “Though I believe I may be correct in my surmise that Lieutenant Prasad and I are no longer a twosome.”
Twosome? Martinez thought. He took a chair, placed it outside the splash zone, and sat. “How did you get involved with her in the first place?”
Abacha shrugged. “The way these things always happen. She seemed a very exciting girl, delightful really, full of spirit and vitality. And then—” He waved a hand. “Boom! Suddenly, this.” He sighed. “I would offer you a cocktail, Gare, but Chandra seems to have smashed the pitcher.”
The bartender dropped towels on the spatter and went for a broom.
“Is she involved with anyone else?” Martinez asked. He hoped she was, because that lessened the chance that she might take a sudden swerve in his direction.
“No idea.”
“Captain Martinez.” Lieutenant Garcia’s voice came on the public address system. “Captain Martinez, please come to the communications suite.”
Martinez rose to his feet. There were very few reasons why anyone would be sending him a message.
“I’ll try to come back for that drink,” he said.
On a warship the communications center would have consisted of a single console in Command, but on Corona the center was a spacious room filled with displays, keyboards, cameras, and ergonomic chairs adaptable to any species under the Praxis. A tank full of brightly colored fish occupied an entire wall and filled the room with a faint briny scent. The room was designed for a large group of racers, crew, and guests to remain in touch with those they left behind, to send and receive text and video messages, and for journalists and broadcasters to send race results to their headquarters.
At the moment the only occupant was the small dark-skinned figure of Lieutenant Garcia, her wiry hair jammed under her billed cap. Members of the Corona expedition had less reason to send messages than most. Half were not supposed to be on board at all, and the rest were subject to Martinez’s censorship. Whoever stood a communications watch on Corona was guaranteed a lonely few hours.
Garcia jumped from her chair and braced to attention as Martinez entered.
“You called?” he said, and Garcia held out a data foil.
“I put the message on this. It was clearly for you, my lord.”
Which meant the message was in the code that Lord Chen had given him. Martinez felt a hum of anticipation in his nerves. He thanked Garcia and went to his suite, where he took out a special hand comm and inserted the data foil. He went through several layers of security, giving his thumbprint and a series of passwords, and then called up the decoder.
The message appeared in plaintext on his screen, and his heart surged into a higher gear.
“It’s begun,” he said, a few minutes later, over the public address system. “Seventy-eight Terran ships of the Home Fleet have departed Zanshaa’s ring and are accelerating at high gees away from the capital. I assume they’re heading for Harzapid but I don’t know that for certain. I also do not know if they’re being pursued.”
Martinez paused and tried to sort out his thoughts. “I assume this means that a political solution to the crisis has failed,” he said. “While I’m sure politicians will continue to do their best, we should prepare ourselves for the likelihood that the situation will be solved only by force.”
Having run out of words, Martinez ended the communication. Lieutenant Garcia gazed at him solemnly from behind her desk.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“Hope for the best,” Martinez said. Because hope was all he and the rest of the Corona passengers could do. A solution favorable to the Terran mutineers would only be found if Michi Chen succeeded in seizing the fleet at Harzapid. And from Harzapid he’d heard nothing.
“I was wondering,” Garcia said, “if we should disable the ship’s transponder. That would make it harder to track us.”
“They can track us by our engine flares,” Martinez said. “We’re going to be accelerating or decelerating the entire journey. Anyone with a radiation detector, or even a telescope, could find us.”
“Yes, my lord,” said Garcia.
“And it might attract attention if our transponder suddenly cut out. Right now we have no idea they’re looking at us.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Though if they were, Martinez thought, they could find Corona easily enough. And that was a disturbing realization.
Despite Sula’s apprehensions, Striver flew on for a month and a half with nothing to remark save tedium. The only person who failed to succumb to monotony was Lord Arrun Safista, who continued his relentless pursuit of Lady Koridun despite her conspicuous lack of encouragement.
Members of Sula’s party began to make friends with the crew, particularly the Terran third officer, the assistant purser, and anyone with access to the cargo holds. Sidney, who was willing to share his hashish, became popular with the crew. Tetrahydrocannabinol and bribery assured access to the holds, and it wasn’t too long before sidearms and some detonators were smuggled out.
Everyone strapped into their beds while Striver cut its engines, spun around, and began its deceleration toward Harzapid, still over a month away. Despite the tide of anger and violence shown on the news programs, there was no sign that the tranquil life of the ship would soon alter.
This changed when Sula received a coded message from Lord Ivan Snow informing her that Tork’s coup was scheduled to take place in nine days. “We move a day ahead of Tork,” Sula told her crew. It gave them a goal to work toward, and Sula made lists of supplies to be acquired over the last days. Lady Koridun, pleased at the thought of finally ridding herself of Lord Arrun, offered to host a dinner for the Legion of Diligence on that day.
Lady Koridun was so utterly gleeful when she contemplated the slaughter of her suitor that Sula became supremely grateful that Koridun had never discovered who had killed her brother and cousins.
Thus it came as a surprise when the Legion took the ship, and not Sula. The announcement came at suppertime, when half those on the ship were sitting in the restaurant, staring in dull disappointment at the predictable meal from the buffet that had failed for weeks to provide anything like novelty. Sula shared one of the long tables with Giove and Vijana, and Lady Koridun sat with Ming Lin. Sula was surprised that Lord Arrun wasn’t sitting opposite Koridun, trying to make himself pleasant, or at least available. Then, over the public address system, came the voice of Fau-tan, Striver’s Lai-own captain.
“I regret to inform you,” said Fau-tan, “that Captain Safista of the Legion of Diligence tells me that Striver has been requisitioned by the government for emergency duty. The Legion is now in command of the ship, and we all, passengers and crew, are obliged to follow their instructions.”
Sula stared at Giove and Vijana while calculations spun through her head. Hide, an inner voice urged, find a place in the hold and stay there until . . . until what? There was no hiding place on Striver. Another voice told her to head for her cabin, find the pistol she’d secured there, and shoot the first member of the Legion she met.
“I’m sorry to have to say that our current course puts us in some danger from rebellious elements within this region of the empire,” Fau-tan continued. “Accordingly, we will be increasing our deceleration and will return to Zarafan as soon as we can safely do so. We will be going to two gravities’ deceleration starting at 25:01 and will continue at two gravities until 07:01 tomorrow, when we will take a break of a few hours in order to enjoy the first meal of the day. Please take steps to secure your families and yourselves in your beds before increased gravities begin.
“I apologize on behalf of your crew, and the On-dau Company, for this interruption in your schedule. Rest assured that these steps are all taken for your safety, and that the Legion of Diligence assures me that you will be able to resume your journey as soon as the current emergency is over.”
“Current emergency,” Sula repeated, her mind spinning. She’d seen nothing in the news broadcasts. She needed more information.
“My cabin,” she told the others, and rose from the meal she’d barely tasted.
Nothing concerning any emergency was mentioned on any news broadcasts. Giove, Vijana, Spence, and Macnamara were soon crowding the cabin, all needing to know what had just happened.
“I don’t think they’re going to arrest us,” Sula said. “They’d do that first, before they made any announcements. They don’t know who we are, and we shouldn’t give them any reason to suspect us. Whatever they’re doing, it’s got to be in reaction to something happening outside the ship.”
“Fleet Commander Chen!” Giove said, waving a hand. “She must have taken the Fourth Fleet! That’s why they’re turning us away from Harzapid!”
“If that’s the case,” Sula said, “she moved very early, for word to travel all the way to Zanshaa and orders to Safista to come back.”
“We don’t know what pressures she was under,” Vijana said. “Circumstances may have compelled her.”
Spence threw out her hands. “None of that matters. What do we do?”
“Exactly what we planned,” Sula said. “We’re going to have to move during the periods of normal gravity.”
Vijana shook his head. “I disagree,” he said. “Under high acceleration the Legion’s going to be confined to quarters, in their beds. That’s when we kill them.”
Sula was considering this when there was a knock on the cabin door. Sula called to ask who it was, halfway convinced it was time to reach for the pistol she’d hidden in her bags, but then she heard Lady Alana’s voice, and opened the door. Lady Alana shouldered her way into the small cabin, tall on her heels, chagrin radiating from her face. “They’ve taken my sidearm,” she said. “Came to my door, polite as you please, and asked me for it. They gave it to the purser, and they tell me it will be returned to me when we reach our destination.”
“Well,” said Sula. “How very civilized.”
Vijana’s eyes darkened. “Civilization’s not for us any longer,” he said. “We’ll have to be the barbarians now.”
Corona never received another message from Zanshaa, but it was able to eavesdrop on news broadcasts, which denounced the Home Fleet Terrans with a completeness that told Martinez that the mutineers had got clean away. Two days later came the news of Foote’s destruction of seventeen ships, followed by official outrage and vows of vengeance. At the same time came the news that Lord Saïd had stepped aside—“temporarily”—as Lord Senior in order to recover the health he had lost in years of service to the empire. The Convocation duly elected Lady Gruum as Acting Lady Senior.
Lord Saïd, it seemed, still had too much prestige to be removed from office altogether. Martinez hoped that the new government wouldn’t kill him and then announce he’d died of age and illness. Still, they seemed to have given themselves that option.
Lady Gruum saw no need for deceit when it came to Lord Ivan Snow, head of the Investigative Service. The Inspector General, along with several of his aides, had been arrested and executed, for “conspiracy on behalf of the Terran criminals.”
Lord Chen hadn’t been mentioned in any news reports, nor had Vipsania’s husband, Oda Yoshitoshi. If they’d been arrested, it had been done very quietly. Whatever had happened, Chen hadn’t managed to send a message to Martinez or to his daughter, Terza.
One appointment gave Martinez wry amusement: Lady Tu-hon had been appointed to the Ministry of Right and Dominion, the department that provided civilian support to the Fleet. She was now in charge of the military, and of prosecuting the Terran criminals with warships and antimatter bombs—though if she had her way with tax policy, he wondered how exactly she intended to pay for the war she’d had such a hand in starting.
Perhaps Lord Minno would know. Lady Gruum’s banker, the Cree who participated in pump-and-dump schemes, had been appointed Minister of Finance. It was breathtaking to consider the sort of mischief he could do now that he was in charge of the government’s money.
Martinez wondered what he’d started with that bet he’d talked Minno into accepting.
The news seemed to have less censorship than usual, possibly as a result of disorganization in the new government, and the news was encouraging. The Terran squadrons in the Second Fleet at Magaria had also made a getaway, but they wouldn’t be turning up in Harzapid anytime soon. The direct route passed through Zanshaa, where the rebel squadrons would be destroyed by the Home Fleet. The alternative was a lengthy chain of wormholes, mostly in barren systems, that would take over half a year to traverse. Michi Chen couldn’t expect them to arrive anytime soon.
The Terran squadrons of the Third Fleet at Felarus were in a very different situation. They were on the far side of the wormhole map from Harzapid and had no hope of fleeing there unmolested. All routes led through either Zanshaa or Magaria. So Senior Squadron Commander Nguyen, the ranking Terran, simply sealed himself and his crews in their ships and announced that any Third Fleet warship departing the ring station without his permission would be fired on. Even though Nguyen would lose any fight that followed, the Third Fleet would be shattered, very likely along with Felarus’s ring. Nguyen had succeeded in neutralizing a force more than twice the size of his own. For this he had Martinez’s admiration, the more so because the Third Fleet was under the command of Lord Pa Do-faq, formerly Martinez’s superior. Martinez knew that Do-faq was a first-rate commander, and he was grateful that Nguyen had kept him out of the fight.
The odds were bad enough as it was.