by Sales, Ian
She smiled. “And take your popinjay friend with you. If he fails to protect you, I’ll have his head.”
Vengeful’s marines had gathered in the bow of the pinnace. They stood to either side, one hand gripping a hand-hold on the inner hull, a boarding-axe in the other. The boat abruptly decelerated, and everyone jerked forwards. A line of light appeared at the prow. In the dimness of the boat’s interior, it shone brightly like a crack into a world of legend. Ormuz smelled oil and the melange of odours characteristic of air recycled too many times; it overpowered the hot metal reek of the pinnace. He glanced across at Varä, and wondered if it had been wise of him to accompany this boarding-party. Yes, he believed the arguments he’d used on the Admiral—and perhaps he still craved action after the sword-fight with the four assassins. But he was no Imperial Marine, he had no experience of boarding enemy vessels. Truth to tell, he might prove a hindrance.
It was too late now to back out.
The crack of light had widened, was now a foot or so in width. The bow-doors split further apart. A marine-corporal gave some muttered command. Time seemed to slow, the air turned gelid, and sound drained from the boat through the bow-doors.
Abruptly, all senses returned. The marines charged forwards, through a gap now four feet or more in width. Ormuz heard them land loudly on the wooden dock outside the pinnace. He reached the lip of the ramp, saw that the boat floated some three feet above the dock, and leapt down to land upon it. Varä jumped down beside him.
The marines had moved out, and set about subduing the rateds present. Ormuz counted five figures in blue. They appeared more confused than belligerent. One or two tried defending themselves, but were quickly beaten down. Ormuz glanced back at the pinnace. There was nothing to see there but the boat and, beyond it, the slot, fifteen wide and ten feet high, through which the pinnace had been winched. Within that slot, Ormuz saw a glowing black curve, speckled with lights—Arnabyad was over Linna’s night-side. Where the world’s atmosphere petered out into vacuum, a luminous nimbus delineating the flank of the world, tiny shapes seemed to float like optical illusions. Those, Ormuz knew, were ships of the fleet.
“My lord?”
He turned back to find himself confronted by Marine-Lieutenant Kiserö. She saluted smartly, and then said what he could already see: “Boat-bay secured, my lord.”
“Good work, Ms Kiserö. Are you familiar with this class of vessel?”
Arnabyad was a frigate, that was all Ormuz knew.
“No, my lord. They carry no marine detachment. But I checked the data-pool for deckplans, so I know the way.”
“Then lead on.”
Surrounded by Kiserö’s three boat-squads, Ormuz and Varä left the boat-bay and entered a narrow steel-walled passage which opened into a circular chamber some ten yards in diameter. Two passages led from the room, one each to Ormuz’s left and right. A ramp curved round the walls and disappeared through a hatch in the ceiling. During the five-yard stretch of passage from the boat-bay, they had encountered no other members of Arnabyad’s crew. But there were some here in the circular chamber. A pair had entered through the hatch at two o’clock; one had abruptly halted halfway up the ramp to the deck above; another stood frozen in the centre of the room. All stared at the marines, and once again Ormuz was struck by their puzzlement. They did not look to be crew-members of a ship which must maintain a careful guard against discovery. Had he got it wrong? Was Arnabyad innocent?
Impossible. The clone assassins had come from the frigate’s pinnace. Arnabyad must be the Serpent’s.
Kiserö led the way to the foot of the ramp, and the group of them started up it. They circled the chamber once—the gradient was gentle—and then through the hatch in the ceiling. They found themselves in an identical chamber, although this one boasted a line of scuttles on the port and starboard arcs. This conning-tower was constructed like a stack of coins, a spiral ramp connecting each deck. They continued upwards, soon reaching the Pilothouse. They could go no higher—at least not on the ramp. Above the Pilothouse, and visible through its glass ceiling, sat the Spotting Top on the mast.
“Who in the hells are you?” demanded a voice.
It was an officer—the captain, in fact.
Kiserö stepped forward smartly and saluted. “Captain Loisz?”
He ignored her. With three long strides, he crossed to the communications-console, flicked a set of switches, and barked, “Yamanë, get me a squad of ship’s corporals up to the Pilothouse on the double. We have intruders aboard.” He turned back to Ormuz and the marines and pulled his sword from its scabbard. “I don’t know who you take orders from, but I’ll damn well fight you tooth and nail for my ship.”
Ormuz stepped forward, leaving the safety of his marine escort. “Captain,” he said, “ you know me. We met aboard Tempest when you joined the fleet.”
Loisz frowned. “Lord Casimir? What is this?”
“You sent a pinnace down to Linna —”
“I did no such thing.”
Kiserö touched Ormuz lightly on the arm, and said, “My lord, we can take him into custody.”
“No.” To Loisz, Ormuz said, “Your boat was at Linna aerodrome. It delivered four assassins sent to kill me.”
“Rubbish!” scoffed Loisz. “My pinnace has not left Arnabyad since I returned from Tempest. Two days ago.”
He turned back to his communications-console and, one-handedly, flicked a series of switches. For one long moment, the tableau held—the captain with his back to them, gazing intently at whatever was displayed upon his the console’s glasses; at the other side of the chamber, the twelve Vengeful marines, and before them Ormuz, Varä and Kiserö.
Ormuz saw Loisz’s back stiffen. The point of his sword described a low arc to the deck. He turned slowly about. “It seems you were right about the boat,” he admitted.
“It wasn’t you who ordered it down to the planet?” asked Ormuz.
“No.”
“Then who did?”
“My executive officer, Yamanë.”
“And where is he?” asked Ormuz.
Loisz shook his head. “He hasn’t responded to my earlier order.”
It was clear to Ormuz that Captain Loisz spoke the truth. He seemed both angry that someone had sent his boat down to the aerodrome without his knowledge, and embarrassed that it had been allowed to happen. He sheathed his sword, holding the scabbard at its top and slamming down the hilt with fierceness.
“I suppose,” he said, “we’d better find that damn exec of mine.”
They left the Pilothouse and descended the spiral ramp to the last of the circular chambers. Loisz led the way into the frigate’s officer country, brusquely instructing all those they passed to follow him. The executive officer’s cabin was empty, and his valet had not seen him for over an hour.
By now a small crowd of some thirty or forty people, they gathered along a length of passage way, while Loisz, Ormuz, Varä and Kiserö conferred. “She’s not a big ship,” Loisz said. “He’ll not be hard to find.” He barked out orders to the rateds in gangway, ordering them to search every chamber, nook and cranny aboard the frigate.
And, in no more than twenty minutes, Loisz was proven true. A runner appeared, young and breathless, and informed them the executive officer’s body had been found in a store room on the lower deck.
“Dead?” asked Ormuz, as they hurried towards the room in question.
“No, my lord,” replied the runner. “Not dead. But not moving neither.”
“Like the clones on Tempest?” suggested Varä.
There were too many people. The passage was full of figures in blue and figures in green. The frigate’s gangways were not designed for such traffic. To Ormuz it felt like being in the midst of a riot. When they reached the store room, the marines had to force a way for Ormuz, the marquess, Kiserö and Loisz through the rateds gathered outside it.
Ormuz crossed to the body lying on the deck near
the back of the room. A man, in his forties, wearing the uniform of an Imperial Navy officer. His eyes were closed, but his cheeks were pink with life.
“He looks familiar,” Ormuz said.
“You’ve met Yamanë before?” asked Loisz. “He stayed aboard Arnabyad when I was briefed on Tempest.”
No, Ormuz had never met him before. He looked up at Loisz. The five of them stood about the body. No, six. The runner, a girl young enough to appear boyish, had sneaked in with them and stood gawping by Yamanë’s feet.
“The clones,” said Varä. “Only… older.”
The marquess was right. Lieutenant Yamanë was indeed a clone. Previously those they had encountered had all been of a similar age—in their early twenties. Yamanë was two decades older.
How many such, wondered Ormuz, were hidden among the officers and rateds of the Admiral’s fleet?
A pair of narrow arched windows occupied the centre of the starboard bulkhead in the Admiral’s lounge. An armchair, at odds with the layout of the cabin’s other furnishings, sat facing them. The Admiral, it seemed, often sat and gazed out at the stars.
Ormuz could understand the attraction: the heavens were majestic and humbling, an unfathomable black and sprayed across it the stars, hot points of white and red and yellow. Somewhere out there were the worlds of the Empire, Geneza and Shuto and the thousands other worlds ruled by the Emperor. Ormuz crossed the lounge and settled in the armchair. He could see no stars—the windows looked down upon Linna, a nacreous plain of blue. And ships. Hundreds of ships, strung across that luminescent backdrop.
The Admiral’s fleet. His fleet.
In serried ranks, they hung against the face of Linna. Line after line of warships. Seven battleships, three battlecruisers, sixteen cruisers. A host of destroyers, frigates, corvettes. Troop-transports, carrying 11,500 soldiers.
He had created this monstrous rebellion, had taken it upon himself to defend an emperor who appeared to feel no need for defence. Why else had the Imperial Throne not responded? Emperor Willim IX sat safe in his palace on Shuto and did nothing.
Instead, his daughter, the Admiral, captain of this renegade battlecruiser, Vengeful, fought the Serpent’s conspiracy. For the past six years, she had secretly extracted vows of assistance from many officers of the Imperial Navy. And now they came to her call… because he, Casimir Ormuz, had asked her to gather her fleet. To help him.
It was his destiny, the destiny he had reached out for and claimed as his own. His grasp was nothing short of treasonous, but the Admiral had forgiven him. Although a clone, an identical genetic copy, of the Duke of Ahasz, Ormuz had been brought up a proletarian. And for a prole to ape his betters was strictly forbidden. The sentence was swift and severe.
“It shall have to suffice,” the Admiral said.
Startled, Ormuz glanced back over his shoulder. He had not heard her enter. She stood beside the sideboard to the left of the door from the foyer, hands clasped behind her back, brows lowered in thought. Her black insignia-less uniform drank in the warm lighting of the lounge, while her shaven head shone gold. She unclasped her hands and crossed to stand behind Ormuz’s armchair. The leather creaked beneath her hand as she gripped the back.
“I had hoped for more,” she admitted.
“I think we’ve recruited a remarkable number,” Ormusz replied. He still found it hard to credit he had a fleet to command. Or rather, the Admiral had a fleet to command. And she followed him.
“It is the number who would ignore Edkar’s Promise who worry me, Casimir. Do they think so little of it?” She sighed, and ran a hand back over her scalp.
Ormuz turned back to the windows. Another creak of leather sounded by his ear. Reaching up, he put a hand on the Admiral’s, felt its coldness. Her flesh was chill and alabaster smooth. Cold hands, a Shutan peculiarity. Or so she’d told him. He took her word for it: the Admiral was the only member of the Imperial Family Ormuz had met.
He remembered a religious service of two days before. He was not a practicing Chianist himself, having long since decided it had little personal relevance. The Admiral, however, well versed in its creed, and observed its practices. Yet she appeared to have little faith in its mysteries.
The lesson that day had been, as it always was, drawn from the life of an Avatar. According to the Book of the Sun, Lord Tadashi had been a reformer. Dismayed at the poor treatment of the lower classes in early Shuti society, he had attempted to improve their situation. But his complaints to the king went unheard—or, at least, they were not acted upon. In desperation, Lord Tadashi hired a famous band of mercenary soldiers, and threatened to unleash them on the city unless various social reforms were enacted. The king refused. Lord Tadashi let loose his hounds of war.
In the subsequent fighting, fully half of the city’s lower classes were killed.
There they were, floating in orbit about Linna, Ormuz’s very own hounds of war.
“Preparations to leave are underway,” the Admiral said.
“You don’t think any more ships will arrive?”
“We cannot afford to wait any longer. Each day, I expect to hear news from Shuto that the Imperial Throne has fallen.”
Ormuz shook his head. “No, we will be there in time.”
CHAPTER THREE
Inspector Sliva demar Finesz of the Office of the Procurator Imperial stepped down from the pinnace’s hatch onto a wooden jetty. Below it, she saw the begrimed metal ribs and foul stained sheets of steel that were Tempest’s bilges. Though gravity only prevailed while she stood upon the wooden planking, the thought of tumbling from the jetty and falling twenty feet or more turned her stomach. She resolutely directed her gaze forward, and began to march.
Beside her, one of the troop-transport’s pinnaces lay quiescent in its berth. Her own pinnace had been warped across the sterns of the two lowermost of Tempest’s six boats. This was the nearest the troop-transport came to a guest berth.
And speaking of guests… where was Captain Rizbeka demar Rinharte? Or even Marine-Captain Garrin demar Kordelasz?
The jetty was deserted, but for herself and her Troop-Sergeant Malak Assaun. And the rateds busy attaching hoses and hawsers to her pinnace. Finesz strode up the ramp from the jetty, toward the entrance to the troop-deck. Still no sign of Rinharte or Kordelasz.
And certainly no Commander Abad mar Mubariz, Baron Mateen.
Finesz had expected the captain to meet her here on the boat-deck. With Finesz’s prisoner. Rinharte was only holding Mubariz as a favour—Finesz had not wanted to leave him on the planet below. The knights sinister had already tried to take him once. She would not allow them a second attempt. She and Mubariz were, after all, more then merely gaoler and inmate…
Was what Mubariz had done so wrong? The Admiral had ordered him under arrest because he spied on her for the Order of the Imperial Seal throughout the years of her mutiny. Finesz admired him for that. He had turned renegade with his captain out of personal loyalty and a recognition she had the right of it. But his deep sense of honour had not allowed him to ignore the fealty he ultimately owed to the Imperial Throne. So he’d reported on her actions, and tried to curb her excesses. (Not entirely with success: the Admiral had frequently resorted to commerce raiding for vital supplies, and people died during her attacks.)
“Where are they?” she asked Assaun.
He said nothing. Finesz hadn’t expected him to.
She sighed, shrugged, and then continued up the ramp to the troop-deck. Assaun marched after her. At the top of the ramp, a pair of large steel doors, half-open, confronted her. Through the gap between them, she could see the barracks blocks—their open sides sheeted with canvas, rolled up in places to reveal neat rows of cots, some of which were occupied by soldiers. Other troopers wandered about the deck, or sat at the trestle-tables before the field-kitchen aft of the blocks.
Finesz looked, but she could see neither Rinharte nor Kordelasz. She turned and peered up the ramp leading to
the top-most pair of berths. She looked along the jetties of the middle tier. There were a number of rateds in blue coveralls busy scrubbing and polishing, but no officers.
“Damn the woman,” Finesz muttered. “Command has gone to her head.”
Grumbling under her breath, she entered the troop-deck, turned left and began ascending the ladder leading up the forward bulkhead to the upper deck. If Rinharte was anywhere, it would be on Tempest’s bridge.
The moment she stepped through the hatch onto the upper deck, she saw the two she sought walking towards her. She paused for breath, winded from the climb, and then raised a hand —
A figure appeared on the ramp at the far end of the gangway and hurried towards Rinharte and Kordelasz. A naval officer, coltish, slim, with long blonde hair in a queue. Midshipman Maganda, Tempest’s acting executive officer. Something seemed urgent.
Maganda caught up with Rinharte and Kordelasz. The captain’s hair, Finesz noticed, was no longer white, but back to its original black. The two officers stopped and turned. The midshipman delivered her news in a breathless rush. Finesz could not hear what was being said, but saw Rinharte’s features turn pale. The three abruptly turned about and began to jog back towards the ramp Maganda had descended.
“What in heavens is going on?” Finesz demanded of no one in particular.
There was little for it. Muttering oaths, Finesz hurried after the three Tempest officers. No more than half a dozen paces later, she realised she would never catch Rinharte unless she increased her pace. Annoyed at the indignity of it all—an inspector, running—she broke into a quick trot. By the time she reached the ramp, she’d concluded she was not as fit as she’d thought. Assaun, damn him, was not even breathing hard.
Rinharte, Kordelasz and Maganda had stepped off the ramp onto the quarter-deck. Finesz caught up with them in the gangway into which the ramp debouched. They stood by the door to a crew cabin, looking down at a pair of marines sprawled on the decking. From the splay of the marines’ limbs, and Rinharte’s expression of disgust, Finesz realised the men were dead.
