by Sharon Lee
But no. The comm crackled, and a fifth ID rang across the general band.
Fortune’s Reward, Solcintra, Liad. Tree-and-Dragon.
Tree-and-Dragon.
***
THE TRANSFER was complete. The last light on the status board was lit.
Miri wiped a sleeve across her damp forehead, leaned forward in the chair, bum arm braced against the board; and pushed the button that connected to her to receivers located at the Council of Clans; Scout Headquarters; each of the major halls: accountants, pilots, trade, and Healer; the offices of Solcintra and Chonselta portmasters; the editorial offices of The Gazette; the general shipping band; and a number of strategically placed public speakers.
We cover the world, she thought, as the master light went to green. You’re on, Robertson. Don’t forget your lines.
***
NORMAL SPACE. The screens reformed. The comm came live.
On the private band: “Boss is here, let’s party!” “Well flown.” “Make a master outta you yet, son!” “Good work, Boss.”
He’d done it.
Pat Rin sagged back into the pilot’s chair, shivering with relief.
He’d done it.
Now, to do the rest.
***
THE VOICE that came out of the old, forgotten receiver was female. Her accent was Solcintran and her message, thought Speaker for Council, raising her head and staring, entirely absurd.
“ . . . Captain’s Emergency. I say again: This is a Captain’s Emergency. In accordance with the conditions put forward in paragraph 8, section 1 of the original contract of hire between the Houses of Solcintra and Captain Cantra yos’Phelium, which requires the captain, her heirs, or assigns to safeguard the welfare of the passengers, I, Miri Robertson Tiazan, Delm Korval, declare a Captain’s Emergency. The Council of Clans will hold itself subservient to Captain’s Law. Control of the planetary defense net rests with the Captain.
“Passengers are advised that the name of our enemy is the Department of the Interior. They have stolen and murdered members of every clan, High House and Low. They have subverted the cash flow of entire clans. They have pressed ships and pilots into service, to the detriment of Liad. They will be stopped. Now. Locations of known Departmental offices and safeplaces follows.
“Repeat, repeat: This is a Captain’s Emergency.”
***
IT WAS THE CUSTOM of Kilon pel’Meret to visit the old Waterway Park with her small son every day before Prime. This exercise gave double benefit, refreshing Kilon and allowing young Nev Art room to run off excess energy in a manner not likely to earn him a sharp rebuke from his grandmother.
The pattern of the walk was well known to both mother and child. Kilon would stroll along the old path from the park’s entryway down to the silted-in pond, while Nev Art might run circles about her, or dart off in all directions at once, saving only that he did not disappear entirely from her sight. He would rejoin her at the pond and they would then both walk back along the path to the entrance, practicing seemliness; thence down the city sidewalks to home, and grandmother, and Prime.
Today, Nev Art darted up and grabbed her hand. “Thawla, look! Yxtrang!”
Kilon was a sensible woman. She was also familiar with her son’s imaginative prowess. So, she did not scream, or gather him up in her arms and run. Rather, she allowed herself to be tugged ’round by the hand, fully expecting to see a tree wearing an uniform of shadow, or a stealthy weed peering over a crumbling section of ornamental stonework.
“Look!” Nev Art said again; and look Kilon did, breath caught in her throat.
For across the rumpled grass toward them came three tall persons—two much taller than the third—dressed in what was indisputably military style, packs on their backs and their belts hung about with all manner of objects.
“Yxtrang, Thawla,” Nev Art insisted, pulling on her hand. “I want to see their guns!”
“No!” she said sharply, and tightened her hold on his hand. “They are only Terrans, my son.” She hesitated. Terran soldiers, here, strolling through an abandoned and all-but-forgotten park in the Low House district of Solcintra? Abruptly, she turned, dragging Nev Art with her.
“Come along, child, it is time to go home.”
“It’s not!” he protested, but she was adamant.
Walking briskly, holding her son firmly by the hand, she went down the path. He stretched his short legs until he was all but running, and so they gained the entrance—and, a moment later, the street.
***
“GO AFTER THEM, Commander?” Diglon asked hopefully.
Liz shook her head. “No. It ain’t like they’re the only ones gonna see us.” She pointed. “Let’s go.”
***
“BOSS?” Cheever McFarland’s voice came low and easy across the tight band. “You ready to cook?”
Pat Rin took a deep breath, and another, deliberately calming.
“A moment, Mr. McFarland. I am afraid that I found the Jump in . . . exhilarating.”
“Was close, wasn’t it?” the Terran said, cheerfully. “Just think what we could do with practice.”
Alone in his ship, Pat Rin smiled. “Next, you will have us touring as a precision flying unit.”
“Something to that. We’re out here if you need us, Boss. All lines open.”
Pat Rin inclined his head. “Thank you, Mr. McFarland.”
“Right.” The line closed.
Another deep breath and Pat Rin leaned to the board, his finger on the switch . . .
The main screen flared, awash with Jump-flares—one! three! eight! one dozen! Two!—Pat Rin snapped back, eyes narrowed, the bands fizzing with static; and then the IDs hit, one after another, gathering intensity, until they blurred and became a single shout; a challenge:
Scout.
Tree-and-Dragon.
***
THE BEAST had vanished entirely.
Not a little disgruntled, Agent ter’Fendil returned to the accountant’s bedside—and stared, heartbeat spiking, breath gasping—the Loop, barely submerged since his last check, kicked in, bringing both into normal range, but the bed—the bed remained empty; blankets rumpled, pillow showing an indentation.
dea’Gauss was gone.
***
THE OLD MAN was recovered.
***
REN ZEL SMILED at his screen, attention divided between the countdown in the lower corner and a wholly imaginary, but completely accurate, screen in his mind.
“Go home now, beloved,” he sub-vocalized.
Soon, she answered. We must wait for Merlin.
***
THE SCOUT SHIPS had settled into their orbits, and if Tower had a sharp word or two to say to them, it was on a private band and not for the entertainment of common ships.
Steeling himself, Pat Rin extended a hand to the board. The bogus Ring flashed and flared in the cabin’s light. He touched the comm switch.
“This is Pat Rin yos’Phelium, speaking for Korval and for the Captain. I call on the Council of Clans to witness formal Balancing with the Department of the Interior.”
***
“SPEAKING FOR KORVAL?” Shan repeated blankly, but Priscilla had touched a key on the captain’s board, releasing the recorded warn-away.
“Dutiful Passage, Solcintra, Liad, Captain Priscilla Mendoza. Stand clear. Stand clear! We are on business of Korval and we are armed.” The touch of a second key sent the Tree-and-Dragon roaring across the general band.
Silence on all bands for a heartbeat . . . three.
“This is Scout Commander Clonak ter’Meulen. The Scouts call the Department of the Interior to answer for acts of murder and mayhem. We subordinate our claim to the Captain and Korval.”
Silence on the bands . . .
“Have you all run mad?” Solcintra Tower demanded. “There is no Department of the Interior!”
“On the contrary,” Pat Rin said. “I advise the Tower that I am transmitting a ship’s recording of an incident
of attempted piracy which took place in the sovereign space of the world Surebleak. You will note that the Department of the Interior claims to speak for Liad.”
“Pirates, speaker-for-Korval,” the Tower snapped. “Surely you know that pirates are not bound to speak the truth!”
Silence.
Aboard Fortune’s Reward, Pat Rin laughed aloud, reached to the board—and froze.
Jump-flare distorted his screen. When the image was steady, there were six new ships in high orbit, their IDs stark and simple.
Juntavas.
Pat Rin bit his lip, remembering the courier who had departed at Natesa’s word, leaving her partner to fly as part of this attack upon the homeworld.
In the screen, another flare, a sharp spike of static, and a ship’s ID.
Implacable. High Judge. Juntavas.
The broad band crackled, fizzed, and produced a man’s voice, speaking Liaden with a slight Terran accent.
“The Juntavas calls the Department of the Interior to answer for acts of murder and mayhem. We subordinate our claim to Tree-and-Dragon.”
***
THE LINES WERE DRAWN, the orders given. Events were set in motion. There was the Plan and the end of the Plan—and the alternative plan, should, unthinkably, they fail.
Commander of Agents sat in his office, awaiting reports, and brooded upon Korval.
Perhaps it had been error, to allow them to continue so long. Perhaps they should have been weeded out quickly, at the very beginning of the Work.
For look at what Korval had cost . . .
First, the Scouts, backed by a ship piloted by a long-missing and presumed dead Korval elder, resist the Department’s first open action on its way to fulfilling the Plan. Nor did the Scouts retreat to Liad, but withdrew entirely from the system . . . .
Next, on what should have been little more than a routine pick-up of the dismissible yos’Phelium ne’er-do-well, Departmental ships were lost in the discovery of a capable and disciplined fleet of war vessels flying the Tree-and-Dragon in Surebleak nearspace—a fleet led by none other than the supposed ne’er-do-well in a surprisingly well-armed pleasure yacht.
Then, as if unconnected, comes a ship full of mercenaries to Liad itself, claiming damage at the hands of the Department. Yet, in its many actions the Department had never dealt with the ship or its mercenaries.
In short order came a Korval battleship, several dozen openly Scout vessels—and who knew how many secret ones?—a Juntavas battleship and its escort—ah, and the Surebleak war fleet. All sitting in orbit, shouting Tree-and-Dragon to the universe, while here on the homeworld itself one Miri Robertson Tiazan publicly denounced the Department and described the location of several minor bases of operation, raising the citizenry to arms.
What more?
The Commander need not look at the charts that covered the desk. He need not look at the screens.
For, as difficult as they had been—as costly—Korval had in its actions against the Department revealed a weakness. There was a discernible pattern in their actions.
On Lytaxin, according to the intercepted mercenary reports, Val Con yos’Phelium had waited until action was in place and swept in with aircraft, sowing confusion and winning the battle and the war at once—all the while hiding behind the smoke-screen of his so-called Surebleak mercenary.
At Scout Headquarters, the same pattern—from nowhere came a ship to turn the tide of battle.
At Surebleak—a building of forces and then action by Pat Rin yos’Phelium. . . .
An emergency buzzer went off, startlingly loud. He touched the comm button.
“Commander—Agent ter’Fendil. I report that the accountant is gone. There is a cat inside the facility. My error is that I pursued, but lost it. Upon my return to my post, I found the accountant gone.”
Commander of Agents stared. A cat, inside the facility? Impossible. dea’Gauss, in his weakened and doubtless disoriented state, gone? Preposterous.
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 po
inting 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.
