The enemy ship staggered as the energy engulfed it. Jets of atmosphere flashed out, sending the shuttle spinning wildly out of control. She flashed past, bringing the nose of the Na’uka swinging back forward again, and flicked a glance sideways to a smaller vision field that now showed her back trail.
The shuttle was drifting toward one of the smaller towers, dark and out of control. She would rather not see it impact the tower and endanger innocent lives. She repeated the excuse to herself as she brought her long-range weapon systems online with a thought. Two tiny projectiles launched out from either side of her ship’s nose, arced around, and flew at the drifting wreck behind them. The two tiny pieces of heavy matter collided with the target and instantly converted themselves into a dynamic energy state that devoured the ship in a blinding flash that forced the rearward-facing vision fields to darken.
As she crested the Red Tower she watched, wary, as the defensive cannons rose clumsily from their housings. No matter which way she had steered, they were going to face these defenses sooner or later, and she was more familiar with those of the Red Tower than any of the others.
They had never moved the way they were moving now. They rotated toward the Na’uka in fits and starts, juddering as if fighting with themselves. And as they shook in their housings, they remained dark and harmless. She knew this was not Marcus’s work, though. It appeared as if Penumbra itself were rebelling against Taurani’s control.
That was a thought to warm her heart, but for now, she needed to get them away from the city so they could plan their next move. She was afraid Marcus was planning on giving up, asking to be returned to Earth, and she knew she would have no choice but to grant the request if he made it. She grunted softly in the back of her throat. After trying so long to replace him, it was an uncomfortable, foreign thought, to think she now needed him to stay. They could not leave things here the way they were. She hoped he would see that.
She hoped, too, that Justin would not be quick to surrender. And who knew? Marcus had surprised her often enough in the past.
The Yud’ahm Na’uka rocketed off over Penumbra and out toward the system’s edge. As soon as they were far enough away she had the ship summon a wormhole, and aimed her nose directly into its coruscating azure heart.
As they were falling into the event horizon of the small black hole, her ship sensed several enormous singularities erupting all around them. Ugly, thick ships fell from them and began to glide toward Penumbra; the Council’s Ntja Peacemaker Fleet had arrived, and it was even larger than she had feared.
As the Na’uka’s wormhole collapsed behind them, she caught one last glimpse of small attack craft swarming toward the city, and then nothing.
Chapter 21
“What do you mean, ‘they’re gone’?!?” Taurani’s throat was scratchy from the smoke still drifting through the control center. The air scrubbers had been going nonstop since his entrance, but they seemed to be incapable of dealing with the last vestiges of tainted atmosphere.
“They fell away just as Admiral Ochiag’s fleet emerged into the system.” The Ntja commander’s eyes drifted to every corner of the pathetic little office. Anywhere but to the enraged Kerie’s face. The bronze domes of the creature’s implants shone dully in the overhead lighting with each small movement, underscoring its nervous shuffling. “Your shuttle was destroyed trying to stop them, sir.”
He had known that. Iranse, at least, was still competent in his duties. The Kerie delegation would not be pleased that he had lost the shuttle. Their near-sighted goals having been achieved, they would undoubtedly have preferred for him to pull in his horns. But if his race wanted to elevate themselves within the Council, they were going to have to reconcile themselves to losing more than a little skiff or two.
“I thought you had dispatched an entire platoon to keep them from that forsaken outcast’s scow.” He muttered. He never liked for his underlings to see him upset, but the Humans’ escape represented the almost complete failure of his more extensive plans for Penumbra. Now, he would need to share the laurels with Ochiag. And his version of events, casting the bodyguard and the two Humans as the villains of the piece, would seem much less convincing to a discerning eye, without a nice, obvious crime scene, complete with bodies, to present.
He chuffed a breath through his brill and settled back in the throne. He had not even considered the Aijians. They would be quick to believe anything he chose to tell them about the culpability of the Human administrator, but Oo’Juto had been a most prominent member of that prickly species. His loss would mean additional scrutiny, for certain. Without Human bodies to focus their hatred, he would have to move quickly to see that his was the first version of the tale they heard.
“Are the defenses operational again?” Taurani knew he would, eventually, see events here coaxed back to some semblance of his original intentions. But if Ksaka and her tame Humans chose to return at some point, he wanted to be able to take care of them himself rather than being forced to depend on Ochiag for support.
He lifted the Skorahn from his chest and dangled it before his eyes. He had been contemplating the cursed thing since he had put it around his neck. He waved the Ntja away. “Get the mess out there under control.” He barked more for something to say than anything else. The administrator’s people had put up more of a fight than he had expected, and a great deal of the equipment needed to control the city had been damaged in the process. Ntja made for excellent shock troopers and security, but most of them were less than dependable when it came to technical support.
Left alone once again, he lowered his head to stare into the sapphire depths of the jewel. He had known there would be some transitional work to bring the thing completely under his control, but he had poured over countless reports since the Human Marcus Wells’s arrival, and knew the filthy animal had been able to manipulate almost every aspects of the city’s systems.
His silvered eyes flicked over the desk. There was too much to do. He would need to meet Ochiag at the Tower’s executive docking bay if he was going to have any luck getting the admiral to return to his ship and leave the disposition of the city to him. He shook the Skorahn, fighting the urge to dash it against the administrator’s desk. The stories about the Human’s mastery of the ancient technology rankled more than he would admit. He was no more effective with the damned necklace than that bloated Uduta Virri had been.
He slapped the desk and summoned Iphini Bha from the outer office. He had kept the Iwa’Bantu girl busy since his ascension; the better to keep her mind from focusing on what it was she had done to the city and its inhabitants.
The pale figure stepped through the hissing door and he forced himself not to stare. There would be plenty of time to explore the more intriguing opportunities this situation offered, but at the moment he needed the deputy to provide some modicum of continuity for those few administration workers who remained after Marcus Wells’s flight.
“I need you to look at his.” He threw the Skorahn at her as he stalked past, sweeping around in a dramatic turn at the door. “You will break through its mysteries before my return or I will know the reason why. Keep it about your person at all times, of course.” He forced his face into something that he thought of as a smile. “We would not want the Core to reject us.”
The big blue eyes blinked twice, and then dropped to the gleaming gem she held clenched in her weak, long-fingered hands. He could see the thoughts churning there under the surface, and his grimace hardened even as his eyes began to gleam with a more-genuine amusement.
“You can think of turning your coat a second time all you wish, Iphini Bha. But you should know, if you ever betray me, the consequences will be … harsh, and long-reaching.” He leaned in close to her, and she cast her eyes down and away. “I am well aware of the reputation I developed among your people during my time on Iwa’Ban as the Council’s envoy. I assure you, testing that reputation would be the worst possible thing you could do for yourself and your family at t
his juncture.”
She was shaking visibly as he turned, chuffing a slight breath of amusement, and let the door hiss closed behind him.
Now, if he could only manipulate Ochiag as easily, he would feel much better about this latest turn of events.
*****
Time stretched itself into an attenuated, painful landscape around her before Iphini Bha moved again. Khuboda Taurani did, indeed, have a terrible reputation among the Iwa’Bantu. She was not a brave woman. She knew that. The anger and hatred that had boiled beneath the surface since first laying eyes on Marcus Wells would have driven a more courageous being to action long ago.
Instead, she had smiled, and lowered her head, and done her job. She had even lost track, at times, of her hatred. It was not easy to hold onto such hot emotions in the face of constant, daily contact. But she had never forgotten her ravaged homeworld, nor her memory of the Humans who had nearly destroyed the planet. No matter how innocent Marcus Wells had seemed, he had still been an offshoot of that ravaging stock. Iranse had reminded her of that in their many conversations.
She could not have let a Human destroy everything she had worked so hard to preserve, could she? Virri had been a vast, suppurating wound on the city’s soul, but she had kept everything together despite his lack of interest or concern. She had even been able to do a little good, helping the people of Penumbra when she could.
Marcus Wells, no matter his stated goals or seeming purity, threatened all of that by his very existence. Even if he had meant everything he had said, and worked diligently to build the city into something greater than it was, things would have fallen apart eventually under the guidance of a Human. Everyone knew that all they were truly capable of was destruction. It would have meant the ruination of everything she had come to care for in her self-imposed exile.
But no one was supposed to get hurt. Iranse had promised no one would be hurt. The Ambassador meant only to remove the Humans, the big Eru had said. She could still remember his soulful red eyes looking down at her. The city would go back to normal. Everyone would be at peace. He had even hinted that she might hope to take on the role of administrator. That was a dream she had never even dared to voice aloud.
Her delicate teeth ground together. Then Angara Ksaka had moved to drag the damned Aijians into the mess. She had known that was not going to please Taurani, but she had never imagined she would have to witness one of them blasted before her very eyes! Right up to the moment the Ambassador had walked in with that giant gun, she had convinced herself everything was going to work out alright.
But with Oo’Juto dead on the floor, smoke everywhere, and the barbaric, metal-studded Ntja howling all around, she had nearly lost consciousness in her terror. When she had regained her wits, the Humans were gone, taking those wretched Thien’ha and Angara Ksaka with them.
That had been more than half a shift ago, now; so much damage and destruction in so little time. Taurani had moved swiftly in consolidating his control of the city. She had watched as the brown-armored Ntja commanders had coordinated strikes against independent-minded conglomerates and neighborhoods before the Humans had even been found. Most of the cartels with a reputation for advanced work had been raided, their operations left in smoking wreckage. One entire tower known for particularly cutting edge research, on the far side of the city, had been blasted off the Relic Core, its twisted remains leaving a trail of glittering wreckage behind as it traced a slow, lazy descent toward the planet below.
And now a massive fleet, larger than anything that had ever been brought against the city, floated overhead. Even if the defenses were brought back online, Marcus Wells would never have stood a chance against them.
Things were not supposed to have happened this way. She wanted to cry, but she felt as if her body had been wrung dry. She collapsed into one of the conference chairs, staring dully at the Skorahn. None of it mattered now. Taurani would bend and twist the city to his will, but he would have to leave eventually. No prestigious Kerie diplomat would stay this far from civilization any longer than necessary. Whatever he wanted from Penumbra, he would take it, and she would be here to pick up the pieces. She could do that. She had done it often enough when Virri had been in charge.
The jewel gleamed in her hands. There were blemishes across its flat face she did not remember seeing before. It looked like a design, some rune or symbol that she did not recognize.
She lifted it up to the light and squinted into the glittering azure flares. It looked alive. It felt alive. But she had no idea how to unlock its secrets, no matter what kind of threats Taurani leveled against her. Virri had done almost nothing with the medallion the entire time he had possessed it. Marcus Wells had never seemed to work at making it respond at all. It had been more that the city reacted to him when he wore it, no matter what he was thinking.
It had started easily enough that none of them had noticed. Lights going on and off for his convenience, doors opening and closing. From there other controls and commands were obeyed that Uduta Virri never would have thought to give. And twice it had seemed as if Penumbra came alive to defend him without his even being aware of it. The destruction of the cloud of nanites in the first attack against him was just one example of things around him working in his favor that no bearer of the Skorahn had seen before.
No one seemed to have noticed until now, when Taurani took such control as a given, and was fearfully angry when it did not manifest.
Would she give him such control, even if she could? She shook her head. A single fat tear finally coalesced in her eye, tracing a warm path down her cheek. Could she deny him that control, if she discovered how to unlock it?
She had been running from something most of her life. Her family’s perceptions; her homeworld’s sad, exhausted soul; her own failures. But how could you run from yourself?
*****
Marcus stared at his folded hands. The surface of the table that had extruded itself from the floor of the ship’s common area was hard and smooth. It had a dull shine, like plastic or bone. And yet it had just been deck plating before the need for a table had arisen. He knocked on it with his knuckles, his head tilting curiously at the hollow sound it made, and then shook his head. What the hell did it matter what the damned table was made out of?
They had been floating in deep, empty space for over an hour. Angara had told them her ship did not have sufficient range to follow the wormhole too far without knowing better where they wanted to end up. So she had emerged the ship into a dead system only a few light years from Penumbra; close enough that their options were still open, she said, and far enough away that they could assume that the massive Peacemaker fleet would not be able to find them.
There had been no signals from the city when they had emerged from the wormhole. Angara had been working with the ship the entire time they had floated aimlessly in the empty system, but she had been unable to raise any of her contacts, or the syndicates that had been friendly with Marcus’s office. Justin had tried as well, using codes he claimed should have worked no matter what Taurani had done to the systems, but nothing was getting through.
Nhan and Ve’Yan were sitting in a far corner on the floor, staring at each other. The same systems that had put the nanites into Marcus and Justin had made for the acolyte’s quick recovery, even from the horrific wound that had laid the girl’s back open to the bone. She was still angry with her master over some doctrinal question, however. His own hand in her rescue did not seem to have softened her opinion of him, as far as he could see.
Justin sat across from him, hands also folded, obviously, painfully avoiding his eyes. Every now and then, Marcus could feel the weight of his friend’s dark gaze upon him, and forced himself not to meet it. He was calm within his own skull. He felt, for the first time in months, as if everything around him was quiet and peaceful. It might well be the peace of the grave, but there was something to be said for knowing you were at the end, as well.
From the moment Angara Ksaka had
swept him away from that dusty roadside, he had been running, panting, scrambling, and suffering. He felt like he had been treading shark-infested waters for weeks, and only now was he able to finally rest.
It was over. If the death of the big dolphin; the battle on the cold, echoing shelf of bronze overlooking the vast underground lake; the bloody fight at the gates of the docking bay; and the dogfight as they escaped had not convinced him that his time in Penumbra was at an end, then the sight of the vast fleet falling down toward the fragile-seeming towers of the city had been.
There was no way their single ship was going to be able to penetrate that kind of firepower. They were away, they were safe, apparently, and there was no reason to return after being so forcibly removed from office.
Angara came in with a heavy sigh and dropped down at the table. A chair grew up quickly beneath her and caught her at the perfect height. She kept promising that the Yud’ahm Na’uka was not alive, but it was a hard sell when it seemed to read her mind so often.
“There are no signals coming from the city. Either they are jamming the entire spectrum, which would take a great deal of power, or they have destroyed Penumbra.” Her voice was flat, but after a quick look to reassure himself, Marcus didn’t think she was offering that up as an actual possibility.
“Well, they’ve got that whole fleet to draw power from now, right?” Justin pointed out. “I mean, there were some big ships coming in. Could they have that kind of capability?”
Angara looked at him, something like a smile playing around her lips, her inhumanly sharp teeth hidden away. “They could have. It could also mean that Khuboda Taurani has gained full control of the Skorahn.” She turned back to Marcus. “Could you have done something like this?”
He wanted to laugh. “Have you not been listening to me? I have absolutely no idea how I do what you say I do with that necklace!” His hand drifted up to his chest before he forced it back down to the table. “I would approach a door and it would open. I would walk into a dark room and the lights would come on.”
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