Lee, Sharon & Miller, Steve - Liaden Books 1-9

by Liaden 1-9 (lit)

  And yet…

  Commander of Agents stood, automatically checking the position of his weapons.

  "I will lead the search myself. Meet me in the infirmary lobby. Be wary—we may be facing a rogue Agent of Change."

  "Yes, Commander," Agent ter'Fendil said.

  The Commander cut the connection, walked across his office and put his hand against the plate set into the wall.

  The scan crackled across his palm. He reached into the safe and removed a short, squat rod, which he slipped into his sleeve.

  Kilon pel'Meret held tightly to Nev Art, her heart hammering with fear. Her son labored under no such affliction. He was enjoying one of the great days of his life. Not only had he spotted the soldiers walking in the park, but now came this parade of taxicabs, each stopping at the end of the placid dead-end street to allow even more soldiers to disembark. That these were soldiers was not in dispute; Kilon had no trouble identifying guns, missile launchers, backpacks.

  Nev Art crowed as they dashed out of the cabs, forming into lines and units with bewildering speed as each cab roared away, to be replaced by another, and another, and…

  "Excuse me, ma'am."

  Kilon jumped back, staring up into the face of the sudden soldier. A Terran, dark-skinned and sober, carrying a rifle in her own streets, speaking to her in Trade. Why, she hardly ever—

  "Ma'am?" he said again. "Please. We're holding a taxi for you and the boy."

  "See, Thawla, I bet they're going after the Yxtrang I saw," Nev Art cried. And then, to the soldier, "Are you? Are you an admiral?"

  "No." The man smiled as he answered, a slow smile. "I never do want to be an admiral, boy." He looked at Kilon, and pointed to the right, where indeed there was a taxicab, pulled slightly to one side of the street.

  "I insist, ma'am. Please take the taxi. There's likely to be trouble and—"

  "Ten'shun!" A large voice bellowed from lines of soldiers. "Group One, double time, move out!"

  Kilon looked about wildly. "Trouble? Trouble? Soldiers in the street is trouble!"

  The soldiers did something—one moment they had been still as rocks; the next, one group was spread out and hurrying toward the park, while another group broke away, trotting down the street toward the office complex.

  Their own soldier waved at one of his comrades, and said to Kilon, "There's a good chance we'll be using weapons ma'am. I'm sorry. You've got to leave!"

  "I saw the Yxtrang!" Nev Art announced, tugging so hard against her hand that she almost lost him. "I want to talk to them!"

  The second soldier had waved the taxi close, and opened the door.

  "You've got good eyes, youngster, if you saw the 'trang," the first soldier said. "Just remember what they looked like, and get into the cab."

  Behind them someone yelled, "Group Three, weapons check!" followed by a loud series of clicks and slaps, and, "Arm your weapons!"

  Kilon flung back, found her arm caught, not ungently, by the dark-faced soldier. "Calm down…" he began, and was interrupted by the arrival of yet another man, much lighter of face.

  He bowed, recognizably the bow of a ranking public servant to person of unknown melant'i, and said in curiously accented Liaden, "I am Commander Higdon. This way, please, civilians must clear the area. I would not want to have to detain you."

  He offered her a card, and automatically she took it, and was somehow gently pushed into the taxi, the while her son was proclaiming, "Yxtrang and soldiers, can't we stay?"

  The dark soldier handed the driver a twelfth-cantra piece.

  "Take them wherever they want to go that's more than five minutes from here. If there's any change from that give it to the kid."

  "Look!" Nev Art shouted in her ear. "Big guns, Thawla!"

  The cab accelerated into a turn, flinging Kilon sideways in the back seat, so she never did see what her son was pointing at. She righted herself, glancing down at the card she still held in her hand, as the cab slewed 'round a corner.

  Higdon's Howlers, the Trade words stated. Military missions. Security to mayhem. Guaranteed service.

  The Department had long planned for this day. There was an undercurrent of expectation in the control room as the master switch was unshielded; the communications web checked; the technicians readied.

  Before them the situation screen was clear; several orbiting stations would soon be under the direct control of the Department, and the destroyer Heart of Solcintra, long disguised as a freighter undergoing retrofitting, was already rising to orbit.

  In the control room, they awaited the Commander's word. When it came, the flip of the master switch would shunt control of the planetary defense web from Solcintra port to the Department's control room, the power flowing from the selfsame uninterruptible source which supplied the portmaster's office.

  The call came; the switch was activated. The screens came live; satellites and warning systems revealed their locations, weapon status, the locations of potential targets…

  On the control board, an emergency light was blinking— not unexpected with so many ships coming in. An auxiliary monitor displayed the message Captain's Emergency in the lower left corner.

  In the main screens, the stations, the destroyer, the satellites, the ships—

  The master technician swore and leaned to her board.

  Not a single Korval ship showed on the screens. Dutiful Passage was not there. Treacherous Fortune's Reward did not show. There was no range on Korval's four killer ships from Surebleak…

  But something was moving, near Station Three.

  The master tech upped magnification, as the comm came alive with a shrill, "Danger! Danger! Hostile action on Station Three! Nine wounded, one dead…"

  Ship ID came out: Lifeboat A off of Jacksbucket Three, Terraport. Somehow, it had escaped the Department's absorption of Station Three.

  "Danger! Danger!" the Terran ship screamed, across all open bands, putting similar actions on the remainder of Liad's orbital stations at risk.

  The merest touch of a dial and the proper blast-satellite was located. The master technician fed in the firing sequence.

  Nothing happened.

  The tech touched another switch, invoked a back up screen—

  Nothing.

  "Check the lines," she snapped, to this aide. "Recycle the interface," to that one; and—"Rebooting…"

  All for naught. The screen steadfastly refused to show any ship flying the Tree-and-Dragon. And the controls remained unresponsive.

  Finally, an aide selected the flashing Captain's Emergency on the auxiliary monitor.

  During a Captain's Emergency control of the planetary defense system is invested in the Captain or assigns. There will be a one minute warning when control is reassigned to the port office.

  The master tech went to manual and ordered the nearest defensive device to use a pulse-beam against the fleeing escape pod.

  Nothing happened.

  "Alert Heart of Soldntra," she said to the comm-tech.

  The most potent dramliza on the planet stood at bay, cornered in a corridor leading to the sealed rooms. She held in her arms a rather large gray cat. Behind her, leaning against the stainless steel wall for support, was dea'Gauss, shivering.

  Agent ter'Fendil had alerted what few fellow Agents remained at headquarters. They'd spread out from the infirmary, in a circular search-pattern, and had also triggered an automated rotating check of the internal sensors that had been turned off to conserve power— and which had ironically permitted the man responsible for the loss of power to escape. And quickly found him.

  But not alone. It was obvious that the prisoner could not have risen from his bed without serious assistance from the woman holding the cat. It was equally obvious that, even with that assistance, his strength was fading, and would soon fail.

  The woman was far more than the Commander had expected. Despite that she was dressed in the torn remnants of what had been formal Council attire, and that her face was dirty, she stood c
alm and alert before the not inconsiderable threat of three armed Agents.

  She might well, the Commander thought, have a gun beneath the cat, or a bomb, or knife, or only her hands. The fact that she stood in this hallway at all meant that she was competent enough to make it past the outgoing attack teams without attracting notice. Worse, it meant that she had managed to avoid the carefully placed external sensors, and that she had slipped past guards on alert.

  This was not someone to trifle with, despite her reported softness.

  Without warning, the cat moved, flowing soundlessly out of the woman's arms—and fled away down the hall.

  No one gave chase. They could take care of it later. The problem now was the woman, as she stood, catless, but holding a scout-issue pistol, pointed at the Commander's mid-section.

  He inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment.

  She said nothing; the gun remained steady.

  "Danger! Danger! Hostile action on Station Three!"

  Fortune's Reward located the source of the warning, and opened a window in the forward screen, showing Pat Rin an unarmed life pod, tumbling free of that same Station Three.

  "Nine wounded, one dead! Hostile action on Station Three! Danger! Ho, the port!"

  Tower came on-line, reciting coords for an emergency descent. Pat Rin watched the life pod move, clumsily, into compliance—and the glare of a beam weapon flashed across his screen.

  "No!" he shouted, slapping up the magnification.

  But, yes. The pod was gone, leaving a slight drift of debris along its descent path. Obligingly, Fortune's Reward redrew the detail window, tracing the path of the beam back to the originating vessel.

  From the closed comm, Andy Mack's voice.

  "I got a clear line to the bastid, Boss."

  Pat Rin nodded. "Fire at will, Colonel."

  Val Con led, now, Sheather and Nelirikk at his back. The lower service ways were empty, which was not surprising.

  The Commander would surely have heard the Passage arrive in orbit, weapons hot and warn-away blaring. From it, he would have deduced Val Con's presence on-world. Being a bold man, he would have seen this circumstance as opportunity. If the Commander played well and audaciously now, the Department stood to win all: the extinction of Korval and the fruition of the Plan.

  The goal was a man-high section of stainless steel access hatches built into the wall of a particular inner corridor. Behind those hatches were the cables, pipes, wires, and comm-fibers that connected and powered the facility and allowed the Commander to reach his hand out to the universe.

  That the corridor in question was off one leading to the Commander's office was beside the point.

  The hallway ahead was intersected by another. Val Con checked his inner map, and raised a hand. Behind him, Sheather and Nelirikk halted. Val Con proceeded at a crouch, hugging the wall, slipping his gun from its holster.

  At the intersection of the hallways, he eased the safety off, and listened. He heard nothing but the hum of the air purification system, yet his hunch was that there was…something in the hall beyond.

  Moving so slowly he scarcely seemed to be moving at all, he leaned forward, peering 'round the corner—

  Directly into a pair of yellow eyes.

  "Merlin?" Val Con breathed.

  The yellow eyes blinked, happily, and Merlin burbled. Tail held high, he danced forward, stropped Val Con's leather-clad knee once, and strutted away importantly, pausing only once to look over his shoulder and be sure Val Con was paying attention. Since he was leading in the direction they needed to go, they followed, with Sheather drawing a long crystal blade as he hurried along.

  The lifeboat was gone, vaporized.

  Miri was bent over the schematic, swearing softly and continuously. She had an ID on the murderer—one Heart of Solcintra, claiming to be a freighter—but no clean shots. No shots at all, really, unless she wanted to go through a scout ship, a can carrier and a Juntavas courier to get her target, which did sorta seem a waste of allies and innocents.

  A detail window blossomed in the corner of the situation screen—at least someone had a clear shot! The debris and gases of the lifepod lit in a lambent glow, and the destroyer itself was illuminated in a rush of scintillant brilliance. There was a flare then as the destroyer's shield went up and Miri could trace the beam to its source—one of the four monstrosities Jeeves assured her were nothing more exotic than asteroid miners.

  There was sudden glare as the destroyer's shields were overwhelmed, and an odd coruscating flash as the mining beam oscillated the length and breadth of the target. The ship's hull expanded, peeled away, dissolved into a plasma of metal, evaporated before the beam, and then the seven decks could be seen clearly for a moment, as in some illustrator's cut-away of a slowly rotating warcraft. Multiple internal explosions speckled the obscuring mist and in one last flicker of the planet-killer ray—

  Heart of Solcintra was gone.

  "Of course you realize," the Commander said, "that this cannot last long. We are several, you are one—and time sides with us. We merely need wait until your qe'andra collapses."

  "Perhaps you overestimate your advantages," Anthora yos'Galan said, and her voice was soft and husky.

  "Commander!" The aide's voice preceded her around the corner—she stopped, amazed at the tableau before her.

  "Report!" the Commander ordered.

  She bowed, hastily, one eye on the woman with the gun. "The planetary defense grid has been subverted by Korval."

  Of course. Commander of Agents pointed at Agent of Change bin'Tabor.

  "Give the command for the air units to attack Jelaza Kazone at low level. Detach a ground force to—"

  "Give no command," said Anthora yos'Galan, her voice firm and gentle.

  The Agent stood as if rooted.

  "I command it," Commander of Agents snapped, and saw the man stir. "Bring in the air units and—"

  "Be still," said Anthora yos'Galan; and the Agent froze. "I see," said Commander of Agents, and raised his gun.

  There were voices ahead, and a better lit corridor. Merlin strolled on, unconcerned. The rest of the invasion force shrank back into the plentiful shadows.

  Came the hurried clatter of someone who was not an Agent in the halls. They remained in the shadows, despite a complaining burble from Merlin—and then moved, cautiously, on.

  "Commander!" came the call from the hallway they approached; the answering voice sent a thrill down Val Con's spine.

  "Report!"

  The words grew indistinct and the invaders, weapons ready, ghosted quickly to the intersection. Val Con spied 'round the corner, and swallowed hard against a surge of sheer horror.

  His sister Anthora, trapped by two Agents and the Commander himself, using her body to shield one who could only be Mr. dea'Gauss, but a dea'Gauss diminished and desperately ill. She held a gun, true enough, but so did her opponents. If all fired at once, even a dramliza—

  The Commander raised his weapon. The Agents raised theirs. The aide gasped and bolted.

  From the shadowed floor leapt a large gray cat, wrapping itself around the Commander's arm, pulling the gun down. A pellet whined by Val Con's ear as he jumped forward, his own gun out and up…

  Training had prepared Agent ter'Fendil to face an opponent with a blade, a gun, or even a security dog. The apparition attacking the Commander bore no relationship to training—and he dared not fire again for fear of endangering the Commander. He reversed his gun, meaning to club the thing—

  "Hold!" Anthora shouted, her voice a-glitter with power. "Do not move!"

  Val Con kept moving, firing into the face of an Agent. Merlin snarled and dug his claws in the harder…

  Everyone else in the hallway froze in place: ter'Fendil with his gun reversed, Sheather, his blade raised as if to behead him; Nelirikk, aim locked on the Commander.

  The Commander struggled, as pain overrode the compulsion to stillness. But for Merlin's growls, there was silence in the hallway. The
sound of dea'Gauss collapsing to the floor was loud—and so, too, was the sudden wail of alarms, and the sound of running feet.

  Sheather shook himself; lowered his blade, and bowed in Anthora's direction.

  "As you say."

  The murderer was gone; destroyed at his word. For the second time in his life, he had killed a ship. Pat Rin touched a switch, opening the comm line between himself and those sworn to serve him.

  "Well done, Colonel," he said calmly.

  "Thank you, sir," Andy Mack replied formally.

  "First class shooting," Dostie chimed in, just ahead of Bhupendra's satisfied, "we teach the enemy to fear us."

  "Which ain't exactly," Cheever McFarland added, "an unmixed blessing." He paused. "How many of them ships out there can we count on as back up, Boss? The battlewagon?"

  Dutiful Passage, that would be, and a question near to his own heart and peace. That it was captained by Priscilla Mendoza, Shan's first mate and longtime lover, was…disturbing. And yet…

  Pat Rin leaned to the comm. "I shall attempt to ascertain, Mr. McFarland. In the meanwhile, do me the kindness of speaking with the High Judge, as my deputy."

  "Will do," Cheever said, as easily as if he spoke to such august persons daily, and signed off.

  Pat Rin did the same, and sat for a moment, hands folded, as he gathered his courage—though what had he to fear? Priscilla Mendoza was well-known to him as a kind and generous lady. He had no need nor reason to fear her. Indeed, he could be certain that she would tell him, at long last, the truth.

  The truth.

  He reached to the board once more, fingering the keys with care, accessing the most secret Korval band…

  "Well met, kinsman!" Shan's voice flowed cheerily into the cabin, as clear as if his cousin sat in the co-pilot's chair. Pat Rin closed his eyes, fingers gripping the edge of the board.

  "Well met," he answered, shakily, knowing Shan would hear the tears in his reply, and caring not at all. "How fares the clan?"

  "As it happens, we thrive—the more so now that the one who had fallen off-grid is returned to us. You must tell me all about your holiday—later. For the moment—rest assured that the Passage stands at your back as you speak for Korval. Oh, and check in with Jeeves, will you?"