“Permanently?”
“It is not clear whether he will walk again. I am told he was most fortunate to survive, oh yes most, most fortunate.”
“What’s being done?”
“Eyes and Ears have started scouring the worlds for him, naturally.”
“They won’t find him. He will have spent the past few years figuring out how to move around without being seen.”
“Indeed.”
“When I return from Woe Tantalum, I expect to be sent after him.”
“You know as well as I do that that will be entirely at Her discretion.”
“Anything you can do to sway Her opinion will be appreciated.”
“I shall do my very best.”
“There is one thing before I go,” Caden said.
“Name it.”
“Aldava… there’s something wrong with the population. Well, as far as Barrabas Fled goes — I couldn’t say what the rest of the planet is like. I don’t know if it was disease, mass hysteria, or water contamination, but the people there were very strange.”
“I will have someone look into it.”
• • •
Eilentes had been awake for almost an hour, and could not take any more. Had she fallen asleep almost immediately, as he had, then she would not have noticed the discomfort of the damp bedding. But she had been laid there for what seemed like an age now, with the cold sweaty slick of the sheets clinging and rubbing against her skin. She swung her legs over the edge of the bunk, and trailed her toes on the floor.
Behind her, between her back and the bulkhead, Throam’s snores rumbled and sighed. That did not bother her, and it never had done. Neither did the heat coming off his back — she never needed nightclothes when he was there — nor indeed the fact that at some point afterwards he always rolled over and slept facing away from her.
No. What was playing on her mind, what was keeping her from getting back to sleep, was that they had more or less picked up where they left off during those last few days together on the Embolden. She might as well have been zapped back in time.
Four times now. Four times they had managed to bunk up since they first set off to Herros. Four times, and neither of them had said the words ‘relationship’, ‘another go’, or even ‘what exactly is this?’
She would not get that from Throam, not spontaneously. She would have to ask. After all this time, she still had no idea if he was just going with a good thing for as long as it went unquestioned, or if it genuinely did not occur to him that it needed to be discussed.
Some things never change, she thought. Some men never change. In fact, show me one who does.
Maybe this was what a relationship was to him. It certainly seemed to have been enough in those long ago days on the Embolden. Could she make that work? It was not like she particularly needed him to do anything else right now. Maybe she was going to be sore in the mornings, but at least she knew she would not need to be finishing herself off.
Euryce Eilentes! I’ll tell your father!
Exactly as her mother had said it so many years ago, when she had foolishly tried to discuss sex with her that first time, the prudish words now popped straight back into Eilentes’ head. She giggled to herself. A woman grown am I, and yet Mama is still my vagina’s chaperone.
She rose from the edge of the bunk and walked over to the wash stand. A faint green light shone within the bowl: gravity functions were normal, and flowing water would be happily provided. She cupped her hands under the stream and splashed water on her face, then soaked a wash cloth and wiped downwards. Starting under her jaw, then her neck, shoulders, breasts, armpits.
Well shit, she thought. I might as well have a shower. It’s not like I’ll wake him.
Throam grunted and spluttered, and rolled over towards her, onto his back. His right arm flopped across the space she had been in, and his hand dangled limply off the edge of the bunk. She was turning back to examine herself in the mirror when he spoke in his sleep.
“Pffff, Gendin come.”
Gendin? A man’s name! I fucking knew it. He’ll hump anything.
Eilentes went back to the bunk, sat down heavily in the space under Throam’s out-stretched arm, and jabbed him in the ribs with the merciless fingernail of retribution. His eyes opened groggily, and he raised his eyebrows.
“Morning Tiny,” she said. “So who’s Gendin?”
• • •
“I am really sorry,” said Caden, “but I’m caught up in something complicated.”
“It’s always the same story,” said Lau.
“This is really important, Midget. I can’t say why, but there is no way I can walk away from it.”
“It’s like you only get in touch when you have a reason to not come home.”
“Oh wow,” he said. “That is something really special.”
Lau shrugged. “I’m just saying what I see.”
“Did it ever occur to you that I’m more likely to call when I’m reminded of what I have to lose?”
The image on the holo was flickering and full of grain, but he could see Lau raise his eyebrows. From his expression, he had not been expecting that at all.
Caden had called home almost immediately after speaking to the Chamberlain. If his suspicions were correct, then Woe Tantalum could be a fortress by the time Hammer arrived. Going there might well be a one way trip.
It was the middle of the night ship-time, but his holo had calculated it was early afternoon in the city of Galloi. Lau had answered the call within seconds.
“I didn’t think of it like that,” Lau said after a long pause.
“Of course not: you’ve never served.”
“I’ve not had the opportunity.”
“That’s not my fault, Lau.”
“Debatable.” There was a long, awkward silence. “We still miss you.”
“I don’t doubt it. Please believe me when I say there’s a very good reason I can’t be there.”
Lau nodded slowly.
“How is she?” Caden asked.
“The same as usual. Hammered most of the time.”
“Just don’t let her drink,” he suggested.
“Really? You think I never tried that? It makes her worse.”
“How can it be worse?”
“Last time she broke the door off every cupboard I had locked. I found her drinking antiseptic gel.”
“I didn’t realise things were that bad.”
“Well, they are.”
“You should have told me.”
“You should have asked.”
• • •
“For the last time, Euryce; I am not seeing anyone else.”
“So Gendin is some kind of ex then?”
“What is this obsession you’ve got with me sleeping with other guys?”
“I’m not obsessed. You were talking about him in your sleep, okay? You. All I want is to know who he is.”
“If you want a threesome, just say so.”
“No, I don’t want a fucking threesome. If we’re going to get back together, I want you to be honest with me about who you’ve been sleeping with.”
“Okay, whoa there… tone down the crazy. That’s a whole load of bombs you just dropped.”
“Oh right, so I get angry about something and suddenly I’m crazy. Don’t patronise me, Rendir.”
“You’re not crazy for getting angry, you’re crazy for getting angry about something imaginary.”
“I’m just imagining things, am I?”
“Yes!”
“I didn’t imagine you talking to this ‘Gendin’ in your sleep; that happened. I heard it.”
“Yes, I can tell. I can hear you shouting at me about it.”
“So you’re not denying it then?”
“Doesn’t look that way, does it?” He pulled back the sheets she had whipped off him and dropped them over his body, then punched some life back into the pillows.
“Oh, you are not going back to sleep now.”
/> “Why not?”
“Because we’re not done here yet.”
“Fine,” he snapped. He lurched upright, sitting himself up in the bunk. “One, I don’t have any male ex-partners. Two, nobody said we were ‘getting back together’. Three, Gendin is—”
“Is what?”
“Is not your concern.”
“He’s not my concern? Of course he’s my concern.”
“I just told you, I don’t have a male ex.”
“What is it then? Male impersonator? Hermaphroditic species? Sex droid? You filthy son-of-a-whore.”
“No, you crazy bitch. He’s my son. Now let me sleep woman, and we’ll talk about your insanity in the morning. Oh, and just for the record: it would be two whores in my case.”
She did not know whether to laugh or cry. The embarrassment of it all!
Throam wriggled back down in the bunk, rolled his body to face the bulkhead, and pulled the sheets over his shoulders again. But he was not quite done.
“And I can’t believe you don’t want a threesome.”
• • •
Elm was in his Civics class the day his world ended for the first time, the same day he first named it.
It was particularly cold in Galloi. The disappearance of the coastal geese and the shortening of the days both signalled the coming of the Damastion winter. Inside the school, however, the classrooms were warm and bright.
“Place understanding before imagination,” went the same chorus that started every one of the Civics lessons. The teacher led the children in their recitation of the Principles. “Reality is not beholden to dreams.
“Knowledge is a product of understanding, which is the product of reason. Strive to reveal it.
“Reject resentment. You are not the arbiter of what is deserved.
“Heed not the ego. Your capabilities are a product of your nature, not your desires.”
Elm did not need to follow the words on the printwall; he knew them well enough. Mother had made certain of that during those long months in which Father was away on deployment. He glanced around the room as he recited with the others, picking out the ones who were only mouthing nonsense, camouflaging themselves in the group effort.
“Empathise with others. Do not assume that they share your views.
“Fact and opinion are entirely different. Treat them so.”
Something began to happen. Another teacher had come to the door of the classroom, one more senior than his own. She signalled the teacher at the front of the class, who in turn beckoned one of the children at the front to take over from him.
“Wealth is not a reward in its own right. Currency must act in order to have value.”
The two teachers convened outside the door, and through the glass pane Elm could see them talking. His own teacher stopped, and looked back into the room — straight at Elm. His face was an ashen mask.
“Seek not power over others. To govern is to serve.”
When his teacher came back into the room, Elm already knew that he was going to come over. Something in the way the adults were looking at him warned of unusual events. While the others continued to recite the Principles, he was led outside the door.
They told him about the ambush and the skirmish that had followed it. Without being gruesome, they tried to explain how the crippled Curtailer had come to a fiery end. They told him as gently as they could that he would not see Father ever again.
His world was a dark glassy bubble, shrinking in around him, and he knew he should shatter it by crying and screaming and becoming inconsolable. But he found himself pushing the feelings down, down into the centre, crushing them into an infinitely small ball that would take up no space at all, and entombing them like all the others he had trapped within.
He had become strong in the past few years. He had learned to keep them deep down and buried, most of the time.
Much to the astonishment of his teachers, he wiped his cheeks on the back of his hand and returned to the classroom, taking up the chant as he walked back to his desk.
“Know well your limitations and your talents. Others will see them more clearly than you do.”
He was strong, but it fought against him. The feelings he had side-stepped were threatening to burst forth again, to make themselves felt. He pushed them down deeper, tried to visualise them being squeezed away to nothing, into a volume so small that it went beyond nothing and became void, a hollow shell where once he had stored the emotions he could not or would not manage. The void was true negation, cold and silent and dark.
He called it the Emptiness.
“Above all, bring something new into the world. Wherever you find yourself, light the dark.”
— 18 —
The Battle of Woe Tantalum
With a silent gasp, Hammer burst from the maelstrom of the wormhole and dropped into normal space, once more bidding farewell to a small scattering of her own pieces.
“Report.”
COMOP was already on it, his hands whirling around and through the holos that fed him information from the sensor palettes.
“Minor hull damage. Enemy contact, system interior. Reading nine distinct Viskr signals… and six Imperial transponders, all verified. Last known locations have been pushed to Helm and Tactical. There’s no nexus in this system, so account for a five hour delay on those sensor readings.”
“Someone already came for them,” Santani said. “That should even the odds a little. Helm, time on secondary jump?”
“Generators are ready, Captain. Just waiting on green lights from the safety systems.”
Santani’s face was grim. Trial by fire; the moment had finally arrived, and now she would find out just how proficient her relatively young crew was. Well, she had wanted to know.
She thumbed her holo and opened a channel to the entire ship. “Now hear this. All hands, this is your captain.”
Even those officers and crew working on the bridge listened in, not stopping their work completely but devoting most of their attention to their commander. It was not often she addressed the crew in this way, and even Klade had turned to face her.
“In a few moments, we will be making a short jump to the vicinity of Woe Tantalum, directly into ongoing combat. All crew will report now to their designated combat stations. We will be making a MAGA battle drop immediately upon emergence. The forward hangar will be cleared of all but the most essential personnel.
“I do not pretend to know the precise tactical situation at Woe Tantalum, but I can tell you that we must not fail. This day must end with our total victory, for we are out of time. If we do not crush the enemy forces we find here, this war will end very soon, and not well for us.
“I know each one of you will do your duty until the very last moment this ship can support life, and I thank you for it. On behalf of Her Most Radiant Majesty, I thank you. Prepare to jump. Prepare to fight. Most of all, prepare yourselves to succeed.”
The channel closed, and a deathly silence fell across the command deck. Long seconds passed before Klade intervened. “Red alert! All hands to combat stations, I repeat all hands to combat stations. Hangar two to lock-down please.”
Life returned to the compartment, and the familiar hubbub of voices and gentle interface feedback filled the air again, more urgent now.
“Green lights across the board, Captain. We’re ready to jump.”
“Give the word, Mister Klade,” said Santani.
“Prepare for immediate jump to system interior. Helm: calculate for Woe Tantalum distant orbital, best guess for vicinity of those Imperial ships.”
The Helm officer’s hands danced across holos, and a wormhole began to form in the space ahead of the battleship. Blast shields slid into place, hiding the view. The ship lurched forward.
“Jump.”
Hammer crossed the event horizon, and the world was plucked into folded leaves of papery light. For an infinitely long moment the walls of reality were undone, and the outside places poured through.
They snapped away again in a time too short to measure, too long to know. Hammer slammed into normal space, groaned, and spooled up her conventional drives.
“Contact the Imperial forces,” Santani said. “Get me the lead vessel.”
“I’m trying, Captain,” COMOP said. “No response as yet.”
“Captain,” said Tactical.
“Use the Act-Con channel,” Santani told COMOP.
“Captain!”
“What is it Tactical?”
“Ma’am… they’re not firing on each other.”
“Explain.”
“The Viskr and Imperial ships… they aren’t in combat at all. In fact they’re now powering weapons and coming about.”
“What are the Imperial ships doing?”
“I’m talking about the Imperial ships… and the Viskr ships. They’re all moving to engage us!”
Santani did not miss a beat. “Prime all defences; turrets, lasers, decoys, drones. Ready on damage control.”
“Yes Ma’am, all defences are primed.”
“Time?”
“Estimating seven minutes to effective weapons range.”
“COMOP, are you getting anything?”
“A lot of comms traffic, Captain. Most of it using Viskr encoding, some unidentified. No Imperial transmissions are evident. There is also hard traffic between the ships and the surface.”
“Show me, quickly.”
COMOP detached a holo from its support at his station, and slid it into the projector in the centre of the command deck. The main battle map switched on, throwing a representation of the planet and its attendant moons into the middle of the bridge. Hammer appeared in green, the approaching ships in red.
He thrust his hands into the holographic field, surrounding the ships that were red, and curled his fingers into a cage to tell the holo he was selecting those elements. He pulled his hands apart, and the field of view swept inwards to magnify the enemy fleet.
Now that the approaching ships were larger than insects, Santani could see shuttles and landers moving to and fro between their parent vessels and the planet. Dozens of the smaller craft were heading to the surface, while only a few appeared to be making the return trip. They had been outpaced as the larger craft headed to intercept Hammer, and they now seemed to be hanging back, as if uncertain about precisely where they wanted to be. Some came about, and headed back towards the surface.
Books One to Three Omnibus (Armada Wars) Page 21
