“What can I say? I guess I’m just an unstoppable fuck-machine. Sorry if you didn’t like it.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it.” She giggled. “It’s just that I… probably won’t be able to, er, take a hammering like that very often.”
“You think that was a hammering? Imagine getting stuck underneath that Bruiser.”
She knew he was changing the subject, but decided to let it go. He was one of the most stubborn men she knew. Well fine; if he was going to change the subject then he could have some mockery instead.
“Is that what you’ve been thinking about out here? Getting stuck under Bruiser?”
“Not like that.” He stuck his middle finger up at her. “I heard he’s so dedicated he turns his link off before he even steps foot in the gym. Know what that means for him? No translations. He literally can’t be distracted from lifting. They say he presses seven hundred kilos. Imagine him thrusting away on top of you.”
“I get it now,” Eilentes said. “Someone’s feeling inadequate since the bigger, stronger guy turned up. Is this because Caden and I started calling you ‘Tiny’ back on Echo?”
“No it fucking isn’t.” He pushed himself up onto his knees. “Inadequate? Fuck off. This is your big, strong guy right here; come and find out if he’s tiny or not.”
Eilentes looked at him holding his semi-hard cock in his hand, with an indignant yet hopeful look on his face, and she could not help but burst out laughing.
“Oh, you kill me. You really do.”
“I’m serious. I need to fuck.”
“Already? You really want to go again, right now?”
“I’m building up to it pretty fast. You think I can’t?”
“No, I’m sure you’re bursting with testosterone. And I know damned well you’re anything but tiny. But I really can’t manage it again, Rendir. Not yet.”
“I’ll smash your back doors in this time.”
She grimaced. “It’s still going to hurt, you big idiot.”
“Fuck’s sake.” He dropped heavily onto his back again.
She grabbed the edge of the bedding, hauled it out from under his legs, and climbed onto the bunk. The bedding contracted back into its default shape, gently holding their bodies against the mattress.
“There’s no way I’ll sleep with that fucking thing over me,” Throam said. “I’ll cook.”
“That’s your problem for being so freakishly hot.”
“If I cook, you cook too.”
“Good point.”
Eilentes pulled the memory bedding back again, until its rigid end cap clicked back over the foot of the bunk. It didn’t try to return. She slid her hand along under the bunk until she found the usual cubby hole, and pulled out a rolled-up cotton sheet.
“You know, if the gravity goes while we’re asleep, we’ll float off without the safety covers.”
“Not as bad as it sounds,” said Throam. “Happened to me twice now.”
He pulled an arm out from under the sheet, and raised it over the pillows. Eilentes lifted her head and neck, and he slid the arm under her.
She rested her head on his upper arm, felt herself rise momentarily as he tensed, and turned her face towards him. Even with the height she gained by laying on his biceps, she felt as though she were much lower down. Between her eyes and his, a steep slope of chest muscle and thick shoulder became her horizon. He had always been a big man, but in the time they had spent apart the man had become a mountain.
“There’s something I wanted to say,” she said. “I didn’t get a chance before.”
“Hmmm?” Throam rumbled. She felt the sound through his side.
“I wanted to say sorry. Sorry for having a go at you about Gendin. I honestly didn’t know.”
“It’s okay.”
“Really though, I hope I didn’t upset you.”
“It’s okay, Euryce.”
“If you want to talk about it at all, you just let me know, yeah?”
He turned his head, and peered down at her over the horizon. “Seriously, it’s okay. I don’t want to talk about it, right?”
“Sorry, I just thought you might want—”
“All I want now,” he said, “all I can think about, is that I really need to come again. I am fucking rampant.”
“I told you, I can’t take another round of that.”
“There’s more than one way you can get me off.” He pushed her head under the sheet.
The reply was muffled and indignant. “You dick!”
“Yep!”
• • •
Caden was tired, mentally and physically, but this was a conversation that simply could not wait. He wished sincerely it could have been one he need not have at all.
“I’m sorry,” Fleet Admiral Bel-Messari was saying, “but I don’t really see what you expect from Command.”
Caden sighed to himself, and tried again. “Eyes and Ears knows fine well that there have been blackouts other than Herros and Echo. You need to follow up on them, right now. Don’t leave it to local patrols to deal with: treat this as an Empire-wide crisis.”
“But… why?”
“You have listened to what I’ve said, yes?”
“I have indeed, Shard Caden. But I have not heard anything that I could use to justify taking resources away from Commander Operations during a time of war. He would have my scalp for that.”
“It’s your responsibility!” Caden sputtered.
The hologram of Silane Creid chose that moment to make a deft intervention. “If I may? It’s not that we aren’t taking this situation seriously, Shard Caden. It’s just that the renewed offensive against the Viskr obviously takes precedence right now.”
“Oh don’t give me that.” Caden felt the pressure building behind his eyes, between his shoulders. His gut felt like it was floating. “Don’t you even dare. You know damned well that the whole reason we’re in this mess is because of what Fleet, and Eyes and Ears” — he jabbed his finger at Bel-Messari’s hologram, then Creid’s — “were cooking up at Gemen Station.”
Creid smiled gently. “And what was that exactly? Do tell us.”
“You were building weapons of mass destruction. In peace time!”
“But of course we were,” Bel-Messari said. “Do you think for a moment that our enemies aren’t? That our potential enemies aren’t?”
“I’m sure they are,” Caden said, in a tone which could have cut glass. “But they probably take adequate steps to make sure their facilities remain secure.”
He spat out the word ‘secure’ as if it tasted of dead bodies. In a way, it did.
Bel-Messari’s holographic form looked down briefly, and Caden switched his attention to Creid just in time to see him look up. The invigilator had most likely just tapped out a private message to the Admiral.
“As difficult as it is to admit this, you are probably correct on that count. We’re still no closer to understanding how our forces were overcome.”
“Then Admiral, for the sake of the people we have already lost — and their families — devote some resources to finding out.”
“I told you; Commander Operations will not divert the ships at this time. Believe me, I know how his mind works.”
“At least try a universal handshake,” Caden said. “Check every registered gate will respond, and request an up-to-date databurst from every ship, station, and facility.”
Creid answered first. “That will be incredibly damaging to the economy. The down-time alone—”
“Fuck the economy. This needs to be done.”
Bel-Messari frowned. “Please keep a civil tongue, Shard Caden. I don’t care who you think you are; neither of us are going to accept being berated by you.”
“If I have to come to Command in person to get your cooperation, admiral or not, I will do much more than fucking berate you.”
Bel-Messari shook his head slowly, and his hologram fizzled out of existence.
“Well,” said Creid. “How�
�� persuasive.”
“Invigilator Creid,” Caden began again, trying to force some degree of control back into his voice. “Surely you of all people realise the need for us to gather information at this point? There are far, far too many unanswered questions.”
“Such as?”
“Well for one thing, who exactly is behind this new alliance which is apparently running amok in our territory. Who took those weapons of yours, and what do they plan to do with them. And also — this is just an example, stop me if you don’t think it’s important — what in the many worlds has been done to those people we found, and why did one of them try to blow a fortress to pieces just to escape one of our doctors?”
“Well now, that last one is something we might be able to get to the bottom of.” Creid steepled his fingers and leaned forwards. “The Vavilov is equipped to answer all manner of questions about these so-called ‘Rasas’ of yours. I’ll have it diverted to take them off your hands. You’re not really that far from each other.”
“That at least would be something,” Caden said. A thought occurred. “You’re not proposing… experimenting on them? Most of them are humans. Imperial humans.”
“Experimenting? No, of course not. The Vavilov is purely a research ship. There are no secret torture labs on our vessels.”
“I’ll have to take your word for that.”
“I can assure you, it’s perfectly true. As for this ‘new alliance’ you mentioned, you’ll have to forgive our scepticism. It’s perfectly obvious that the Viskr are manipulating our citizens. We might not know how just yet, but we will find out.”
“And the mystery vessel Captain Santani fled from? This ‘dreadship” which she says was probably in the Herros system too?”
“Utter rubbish,” Creid sneered. “She doesn’t want to admit a straight defeat at Woe Tantalum, and she concocted that story to explain why victory was never within her grasp.”
“And then convinced her entire command crew to go along with the scheme?”
“Naturally.”
“You’ve never served, have you?”
“I don’t really see what that has to do with anything, Shard Caden.”
Caden leaned in close to the holo, and barely kept the anger and contempt from his voice. “That’s exactly my point, Invigilator Creid.”
Creid stared at Caden for a few seconds, and then his holographic image also vanished.
“You were a lot of help,” Caden said.
The Chamberlain’s hologram smiled.
“If you think they were difficult to convince, you should try speaking in front of the Home Council.”
“I don’t believe it’s my role to convince anyone. It would have been useful if you had stepped in, instead of sitting there in silence.”
“Fleet Command will have their own plans for chasing up on those blackouts, I’m sure of it,” the Chamberlain said. “Indeed I think it’s entirely possible to worry too much about that sort of thing.”
“You sound very relaxed about it.”
“Naturally there are things going on behind the scenes which you are not privy to.”
Caden closed his eyes momentarily, and sighed. “Of course. I should have known there would be. And Eyes and Ears?”
“Eyes and Ears, I suspect, are just covering their embarrassment. Oh, they become more like politicians every day.”
“I suppose you have nothing to contribute to that situation either?”
“They have their mandate and they have their means. It is certainly not up to me to do their thinking for them. If they fail the Empress, they will answer for it.”
“I don’t think the many worlds of the Imperial Combine should fall into chaos, just because of a lack cooperation.” Caden drummed his fingers on the desktop, staring at the Chamberlain. He tilted his head slightly. “I’d like to request audience.”
“I will of course ask, but as you would expect the current crisis is taking up much of Her Radiant Majesty’s time.”
“Please do. It’s been far too long.”
“Indeed I shall. And I will pass on your concerns regarding the apparent lack of action from Fleet.”
“I would appreciate that. Ever since this started, I’ve felt like I’m coming up against a brick wall every five minutes. I don’t seem to recall ever meeting such resistance from ships’ captains before. It’s just not right.”
“Some might say that’s for you to deal with. Assert your authority, Shard Caden.”
“I can’t help but feel that perhaps matters might be different if people were reminded of Her Majesty’s existence more frequently. After all, when they tell me ‘no’, they tell Her too.”
“I will pass that along also.”
“Thank you.”
“There is some other business. As I recall, you asked to be sent after the renegade Maber Castigon once you returned from Woe Tantalum.”
“I did. I remember it vividly.”
“You have your wish. After conferring with Correction and Probation, and the Chamber of Justice, the court of Her Radiant Majesty the Empress formally orders you to hunt down the fugitive Castigon, and authorises you to exercise summary justice.”
“He’s to be killed?”
“Indeed. Assassinated, like the Shards he murdered. Good riddance, I say.”
“He has certainly earned it.”
“Earned it, oh yes.”
“I still have a few loose ends to tie up. Those missing weapons are still out there, as are the people who took them. And there’s someone I need to find who might be able to tell us more.”
“Oh, you should do what you need to do, of course. But Maber Castigon is a priority.”
“Nobody wants to put a bullet in his chest more than I do, but is he really that important at the moment? Considering we’re at war?”
“We are indeed at war, yes, and he is killing Shards. He is proving to be quite adept at it, and we cannot afford to lose such valuable resources at this time.”
“I see. Well, it’s certainly nice to feel wanted for a change.”
— 04 —
The Beast of Blacktree
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end. All shall crumble. All shall become dust, and then vapour, and then energy, until — when the very last sparks of the cosmos have faded to nothing, when the links between subatomic particles are stretched so far that they simply disappear, when the tenuous fabric of reality is as lost as the memory of the beings which once inhabited it — there will be only void: a timeless, empty nothing. We are but embers in the wind.
The old mantra tumbled around in Groath Betombe’s head, crashing heavily within the chaotic chimera assembled from his dreams and his senses; each intonation every bit as real as the dust and the fire, the shrapnel and the screaming, the clamorous whirlwind of images and the sounds his unconscious mind fabricated.
Darkness came, and with it a snatched instant of quiet. Then a vivid light that burned to his very core. Then darkness again.
“Admiral?”
A sensation of motion, of travelling backwards, black fabric sweeping around him and blotting out all else, before pulling back to reveal the world; all light again.
“Can you open your eyes for me? Open your eyes, Admiral.”
“Too bright,” Betombe croaked. His eyelids parted tremulously.
The corpsman turned the head of a surgical lamp away from them, pushed it until it swung over the admiral and came slowly to rest facing the bulkhead.
“You’re going to be fine,” he said. “I have to admit though, you did have me worried for a short while.”
“Condition?” Betombe said.
“Very minor injuries on the whole. You were thrown clear across the command deck, so expect some pain and bruising. You hit your head pretty hard, from what I’m told, but I’ve not seen any evidence of haemorrhage.”
“I meant the ship.”
There was a pause.
“Umm… I’m afraid I wouldn’t kno
w.” The lights flickered as he spoke; once, twice, then back to full brightness. A rumbling growl travelled through a nearby passageway. “But we did take some damage at Gousk, obviously.”
“I need to get back to the command deck.”
Betombe raised himself on his elbows, then his hands, and swung his legs off the side of the bed.
“I really wouldn’t recommend that, Admiral. You need to stay in sickbay for the moment.”
“You said very minor injuries. I need to be on the bridge.”
“I did, yes, but you might still be concussed. In any case, the command deck is no longer habitable. The ship is being run from auxiliary command.”
“Then that’s where I have to go.”
“You need to be observed.”
“Well then, you’ll just have to come with me, won’t you?”
The corpsman sighed deeply, as if resigning himself to the excursion, and reached for a medical kit. He shouted hurried instructions to some of the other medical staff.
Betombe’s feet touched the cold deck plates, and he rose cautiously from the bed. Swaying, he put his hand out to steady himself, and waited for his vision to stop swimming.
“Are you okay?”
“I just need a minute.”
“I really think it would be much better if you stayed here.”
“You made that quite clear. I appreciate your concern and your most remarkable insistence, but I can’t very well sit this out.”
“As you wish, Admiral.”
“Where are we, anyway?”
“The Hujjur system, Sir.”
“Makes sense,” said Betombe, pushing his arm through a sleeve of his tunic. “Closest Imperial system to Gousk.”
“Here, let me help,” the corpsman said. “You’ve got the wrong arm there.”
Betombe looked down. Sure enough, he was putting his tunic on backwards.
“I can manage,” he said, pulling his arm free of the sleeve. “This says nothing about my condition, you understand.”
“Hmmm.”
“Hmmm, Sir.”
Another rumbling, banging sound moved along the passageway outside. A harsh judder was transmitted through the deck, seemingly chasing after the noise. Love Tap was complaining about his own injuries.
Books One to Three Omnibus (Armada Wars) Page 32
