Defiance: (The Spiral Wars Book 4)

by Joel Shepherd

  But there was one person who had both the skills, and the attention span, to reply to her query. “Hello Styx,” she formulated silently, to keep the privates out of the conversation. And keenly felt the absurdity, that she would have this conversation openly with the drysine queen, but not before her own marines. “Any ideas how Aristan knows his fleet just arrived?”

  “Hello Major. My best suggestion is that he made an educated guess, having arranged it in advance. Given all the variables between now and then, my confidence in this suggestion is low.”

  “You’re unable to detect any unique coms activity in his quarters? Some hidden uplinks?”

  “I have been instructed to stay out of Phoenix’s systems,” Styx said primly.

  “Don’t bullshit me, Styx. I’m not Romki, I won’t fall for it.”

  A short pause. “The sensory capabilities in Aristan’s quarters are primitive.”

  “I’ve brought one of your bugs with me,” said Trace. “I’m giving you the authority to utilise its systems, through Phoenix. I’m going in to talk, tell me what you see.”

  “Understood, Major.”

  Trace nodded to Spitzer and Heong, who prepared rifles, then opened the door. Trace walked in, unarmored, with just a pistol in her hand. Aristan’s eyes registered her, deep within his black hood, but he didn’t pause in his eating. Vegetarian, Trace saw. Parren ate a little meat, but their biology would not take large quantities. Many parren took that as a sign, and stayed away from meat entirely. It was, Trace thought, a matter more of biology than morality.

  Trace took the one small seat against the wall table. “Nearly two hundred and thirty hours. How do you feel?”

  Aristan kept eating. For a moment, Trace thought he was ignoring her. Then he spoke, a single, parren word. “Light,” said the piece in her ear. Another mouthful. “And clear.”

  “Good,” said Trace. “Perhaps we do meditate for the same reasons.”

  Aristan took another mouthful of lentils, not bothering with the face veil, a difficulty while eating. He’d been uncovered for the entire Kantovan mission. Trace wondered if he felt any sense of familiarity with her, or even intimacy, in the friendship kind of way, given that shared experience. “The Domesh meditate for a great cleansing, of both mind and body. Mind and body are inseparable. One must attain command of both.” Another mouthful. “Do your Kulina practise a similar cleansing?”

  “Kulina are warriors,” said Trace. “Warriors need food. To allow physical condition to deteriorate is unprofessional.”

  “Ah,” said Aristan, with a faintly mocking smile. “So. The weapon must remain sharp, however uncertain of its target.” His eyes found the gun in her hand. “You say my body has deteriorated, yet still you bring your weapon?”

  “Rules,” said Trace.

  “Ah.” There was nothing faint about his derision now.

  “I put you out cold before you started fasting, no gun required,” Trace reminded him. Aristan’s smile vanished. “Jobs have rules, and some of us are better at them than others.”

  It was a calculated prod. Or at least she was pretty sure it was. She had to be careful, sometimes, that the urge to lash out, verbally at least, did not get the better of her. She did not need to win the argument — that would be ego talking. She simply needed to assess his state of mind, given how unstable it had been, prior to him seeing the ancient recording of his idol, Drakhil.

  To her surprise, Aristan’s smile returned, just a little. “Major. You deserve an explanation. This is… difficult, for me.”

  Trace was nearly astonished. Of all the things she’d thought Aristan might give her, an apology had not been among them. “I understand,” said Trace. “The recording was unexpected.”

  “Yes. Most unexpected.” He took a long, slow breath, as though attempting to recall the calm that he’d attained, in more than two hundred hours of meditation. “One is accustomed to a certain way of doing things. To certain truths.”

  “Our drysine queen,” said Trace, studying him intently. “She tells me that the Tahrae were varied in their beliefs. You Domesh are a small group, it is easier to be uniform in your practices. But the Tahrae were enormous. The largest denomination of the largest House, at the time. The keepers of the drysine alliance, with all the authority that brought them. Everyone wished to be Tahrae… or at least, numbers far larger than Domesh have today.

  “And so there were many different practices among them. Some dressed as you do, and found harmony in deprivation of the senses. Others were less strict, and found their harmony elsewhere. Drakhil, Styx says, was one of these.”

  It was a struggle for him even now, Trace could see. His eating stopped, his posture rigid, as he tried to retain composure. Trace did not know the details of recent parren history well enough to know how the Domesh had arrived at this point, but clearly there had been parren in House Harmony who practised these austere ways back in Drakhil’s age, and likely well before. At some more recent point, Domesh leaders had settled upon Drakhil as their great figure of historical worship, and determined that he, too, had followed Domesh beliefs and practices.

  But reinterpreting history across such vast distances was dangerous. Far less dangerous with pre-historical figures, before even electricity, and video recordings. But Drakhil’s time had been modern — in some ways even moreso than today. So reviled had the Tahrae been, following the defeat of the drysines and the end of the Machine Age, that all of those recordings had been erased, cleansed from collective parren memory. Looking at Aristan’s mental state now, Trace found it entirely too plausible that parren could do that too well — could destroy their collective memory of events to the point that history could be rewritten by those who found it convenient, without any historical record surviving to contradict this new, useful interpretation.

  They’d made Drakhil out to be something he wasn’t, then built an entire movement upon it. Had intended to make an empire out of it. A restoration of the great Parren Empire that had followed the drysines, led by House Harmony, and the resurgent Domesh, following in the footsteps of the rehabilitated Tahrae. An empire that could restore the parren people to greatness once more. And now, with one simple discovery, all was threatened with ruin.

  “We will adjust,” Aristan said finally. He resumed his food, clearly famished. “What of my fleet? How many ships?”

  “Seven,” said Trace. “Toristan leads them.”

  “Captain Maresh,” said Aristan. “A good man. I will go to them when they arrive, and then we will be free of this tavalai mess. Free to go and finally seek Drakhil’s data-core. You do know where it is?”

  Trace nodded cautiously. “We know.”

  “Good. These will be great days, Major, for your people and mine. Great days.”

  “My bug has detected nothing unusual,” Styx told Trace as soon as she’d left Aristan’s quarters. “However, it does occur to me that there are minuscule changes in Phoenix’s systems, depending on which power mode is in use. When the ship prepares for combat, power distribution switches to combat mode, activating decentralised backup distributors. It makes very faint changes to many ship systems, which can be heard in the sound of the air systems, in the brightness of the lights, and even in the background vibration of cylinder rotation and generator systems. I had presumed that parren could not detect these changes, as humans cannot. But perhaps a parren of the meditative practice of Aristan could.”

  “And he sensed the ship changing modes when the Domesh Fleet came in,” Trace finished. She gave an approving nod to Spitzer and Heong, who looked happier for it, and set off back to Assembly. “Out of interest, how much more sensitive would his senses have to be than a human’s, to detect those things?”

  “I am ill-equipped to judge the organic sensory abilities of any species.”

  She always protested that, Trace thought. Like a child-averse adult being asked to change a diaper, she always found some excuse to stay clear of organic affairs. “Guess,” Trace insisted.r />
  “Lots,” said Styx.

  Trace smiled, ducking into the C-bulkhead stairwell and sliding down. “That’s not a personality you’re developing there, is it Styx?”

  “With respect, Major, I am more than twenty thousand of your years old. The implication of your question is like you being accused of immaturity by a child.”

  6

  Erik sat in the captain’s chair, and watched the pandemonium breaking out amongst the assembled tavalai ships.

  “Captain, I just confirmed that translation on the Toristan’s last transmission,” Shilu announced, reading off his second screen. “They’re granting Phoenix de facto parren citizenship, under laws laid down in the State Department statutes… apparently there’s a whole raft of them that govern relations between tavalai and parren, they go back to the fall of the Chah’nas Empire, so eight thousand years. They claim they’ve got the right to do that, as representatives of the highest authorities in House Harmony.”

  Toristan and the six parren ships with her were just five seconds light-distance away, a mere one-and-a-half-million kilometres, and closing fast. The tavalai Fleet ships had redeployed, jump engines throbbing on red-alert standby, as were those of Phoenix, but aiming no weapons. For the first ten minutes of the parren’s entry, State Department vessels and Tantotavarin had taken turns advising the parren visitors that this was tavalai space, and they were in violation of territorial protocols. Toristan had replied only once, saying that House Harmony authorities had made an agreement with Kanamandali, under Admiral Janik, and thus all tavalai authorities were bound by it. That had started a lightshow barrage of lasercom transmissions between State Department and tavalai Fleet ships, and Kanamandali, which Phoenix could not hear, but could see lighting up scan like a Deliverance Day celebration.

  “Captain,” Shilu added, monitoring about thirty things at once with his usual grace, “I’m reading an outgoing lasercom transmission from Toguru to Toristan.”

  “They’re not going to be happy,” Shahaim muttered, perusing Scan for hints on the incoming ships’ specifications. “In the middle of their big council meeting to decide how they’re going to cook us, and now…”

  “Captain,” Shilu interrupted, “Toristan’s broadcasting again. It’s… sir, they’re not actually saying anything, they’re just rebounding Toguru’s lasercom message.” If he weren’t locked into the intense-focus zone that he usually assumed in the captain’s chair, Erik’s jaw might have dropped. “It’s… hang on, running the translation now.”

  “They’re not going to like that,” Shahaim murmured.

  “Sir,” said Shilu, reading off his screen, “it’s… that translation’s just State Department bureaucracy. It’s… they’re trying to tell the parren why they can’t grant us citizenship. Toristan just threw it back in their faces and rebroadcast what was supposed to be a private conversation, that’s pretty ballsy.”

  An uplink signal blinked from Trace. Erik knew she wouldn’t bother him at such a moment unless it was important, and blinked on it. “Captain, Aristan is asking for a coms channel to Toristan.”

  “Put him on to me,” Erik directed.

  A click, and then, “Captain Debogande. Allow me to talk to my ships. We will need direction and coordination if we are to get out of this without shooting.”

  “I can’t do that right now Aristan,” Erik replied. “We’re not…”

  “Captain,” came the testy reply. “This venture is never going to work unless you trust me…”

  “This isn’t about trust, it’s strategy,” Erik retorted, eyes fixed on his screens, darting from one threat to another, and the accumulating unintercepted coms traffic overflowing from Shilu’s post. “There hasn’t been time yet for anyone to get down to the Kamala Vault and find out exactly what we stole. Podiga may have told them about whatever scandals we handed over in the first cylinder we stole, but if they’ve found out that we stole Drakhil’s diary, that message hasn’t reached the State Department or Tantotavarin here. Combined with the fact that they’re now ninety-nine percent sure we have a hacksaw queen aboard, they might figure out what we’re really after.”

  A short pause from Aristan. “They do not know that such data-cores even exist.”

  “No, but they might wonder what could motivate a hacksaw queen to assist us in this way, and make a pretty close guess. Drakhil’s diary would indicate that it must have been a pretty big secret from about then, and we went to all that trouble to grab the diary, even if they don’t know what’s in it. They won’t want either us or her acquiring that secret.

  “Right now they don’t know you’re aboard. If they find out, it might give away that Drakhil’s diary was the target, as that’s the only thing in the vault that you’d risk yourself for personally. And then they might just decide to fry us here and to hell with the consequences…”

  “And State Department would thank them, on the behalf of my many enemies back home,” Aristan concluded for him. “Many of whom are far more friendly with State Department than I am. Yes, well reasoned Captain… however, I would request to receive all coms from my people, so that I can provide you with translations and possible hidden messages.”

  “Yes of course,” said Erik, and blinked it to Shilu’s post, to give him yet one more thing to deal with. Going to have to add an extra coms post at least, he thought vaguely — warships weren’t designed to deal with these political complications, and certainly not tavalai political complications. Coms auto-sequencing typically deal with communications on a priority basis determined by seniority and chain-of-command, but here, where chain-of-command was less than clear, Lieutenant Shilu was constantly in danger of being swamped, and was relying on the autos to catch anything important he missed.

  ‘Could let Styx do it’, the thought occurred to him. She had the infinite processing capability, and obviously the intelligence… but no. Or rather, as Kaspowitz would say, hell no. Once they started letting Styx take up the slack on bridge command functions, where would it stop?

  “Incoming from Tantotavarin,” said Shilu, and put it to general coms without waiting to be told — the kind of judgement call Shilu would always get right.

  “Phoenix this is Tantotavarin,” came an untranslated tavalai voice. Not Captain Kaledramani, Erik thought. The Coms Officer then, also an English speaker. “You will not accompany these parren, they have no legal standing in tavalai space. Should you attempt to depart without authorisation, you will be considered in flight from tavalai justice, and fired upon.”

  “Charming,” Shahaim murmured.

  “Package it,” Erik told Shilu. “Wrap it up, then broadcast it to everyone. Add no further comment.”

  Shilu fought back an adrenaline-charged smile as he did that, fingers flying. “Aye Captain, packaging and sending.”

  “Are they even running English translators?” Shahaim asked him, meaning all the other tavalai ships, and now the parren.

  “Guess we’ll find out,” said Erik. Five seconds for the message to travel out, a few more for Toristan to figure a reply, then five more seconds to travel back…

  “Incoming from Toristan, broadcast,” Shilu announced, and put that through as well.

  This time it was the translator speaking, emotionless and harsh. “All tavalai vessels, this is parren warship Toristan. The human vessel Phoenix is now protected by parren citizenship, and is a registered vessel under parren shipping codes agreed to in the Treaty of Pathanaka, in force between tavalai and parren for five thousand years. Firing upon a registered parren vessel, containing registered citizens of the Parren Empire, will result in a state of war existing between the Parren Empire and the Tavalai Confederacy. Military actions will commence at once, beginning with the border systems, placing in peril the lives of twenty billion tavalai citizens. Reconsider this folly, or see your name cursed for millennia to come.”

  Deathly silence on the Phoenix bridge. On Shilu’s coms screen, even the ongoing cross-chatter seemed to pause. “Well th
at got their attention,” Kaspowitz muttered, still running his furious escape-trajectory calculations, and now on option twenty-five.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Shahaim said quietly. “They’re Domesh, they can’t promise a state of war on behalf of their own House, let alone all parren. They just gave away that there’s something on Phoenix they’re desperate to get.”

  “Might work though,” Erik replied. “Tavalai are stubborn, but they’re also conservative. You make a big enough threat, they’ll listen. Maybe parren have figured that out after dealing with them for forty thousand years.”

  “Or maybe damn autocratic parren just expect to get their way and don’t understand subtlety.”

  “No,” said Erik. “Parren aren’t chah’nas, they don’t bluster. They calculate. Even the fringe loonies like Aristan are clever as hell. These guys are up to something.” Shahaim looked wary of the much younger man’s judgement, but understood well enough when the exchange of views was ended. “Lieutenant Shilu, I think now is a good time to transmit that package that Ensign Jokono has been working on. Broadcast on all channels.”

  “Aye Captain,” said Shilu, and called up that data package. If State Department had known they possessed that, Erik thought, they’d surely have instructed Tantotavarin to destroy Phoenix in language that Tantotavarin could not ignore. Evidence that the sard alliance was illegally bought and paid for could finish the State Department for good. “Sending now.”

  For several minutes, nothing happened. Then Ragada, the senior-most vessel of the Tola Dasha, one of the oldest legal institutions in tavalai space, called Erik directly. “Where did you get this?” that captain demanded, and Erik could hear his true voice hoarse and trembling behind the translator’s dry expression.