by J. L. Doty
York considered carefully that he was looking at a standard system-wide situation map, accessible by any Fleet officer. There had to be other data available—and he did have ring-zero access, but only within the confines of Cinesstar’s operating system. He needed to extend that access beyond the hull of the ship.
“Computer,” he said. “Confirm access.”
Access ring-zero confirmed.
“Computer. Access patch—Cinesstar main to Luna Prime main. Execute.”
He waited for a long moment, then the computer said, Confirm access level.
He spoke quietly. “Access ring-zero.”
Confirm access code.
“Access Three Charlie Two Niner One Niner Alpha confirmed.”
Access patch—Cinesstar main to Luna Prime main complete. Access ring-zero.
York let out a long, slow breath. Given several hours to set up and debug the proper programming, with ring-zero access he could take complete control of Luna Prime, but there were too many system level failsafes, so to attempt to do so in the few minutes he had would prove disastrous. Cautiously, using this near god-like access, he dug deeper into Fleet’s information structure, checking every step before taking it, conscious that he could easily trigger some alarm. He dug into the private Admiralty Council files, and after several minutes of exploration he found it, a special limited-access situation map. It was tracking a good sized Directorate Fleet, information hidden from all but members of the Admiralty Council. Home Fleet was deployed to intercept, with elements of Seventh Fleet driving hard to support her. Some time in the next day all hell was going to break loose.
“Cap’em,” his implants bleeped. “Palevi here. Down in sickbay. Uh . . . you better come down here, sir.”
“What is it?” York demanded angrily. “I don’t have time.”
“I can’t describe it, Cap’em. You better come down yourself.”
Something had shocked Palevi. “I’ll be right down.”
“He’s escaped,” Abraxa screamed.
Soladin nodded. “He had help, a few bribes generously distributed, a shuttle waiting in just the right place at just the right time.”
“But who?” Schessa asked. The three of them were meeting separately from the rest of the Admiralty Council.
Soladin speculated, “Sylissa d’Hart?”
Abraxa shook his head. “No. She’s Juessik’s. He’s a devious little twerp, and he has some hold over her.”
“For the time being it doesn’t matter,” Schessa said. “We’ll find out and deal with whomever it was later. Right now we have to find Ballin. We can’t let a potential pretender to the throne escape.”
Abraxa shook his head worriedly. “But we have no track on him. It was cleanly done, no trace, no trail, and those guards who took bribes have long since disappeared.”
“But we do have a track on him,” Soladin said carefully, his lips curling up into a satisfied grin. Both Schessa and Abraxa looked at him and waited. “He’ll go to his ship. He won’t just run, not him—that ship’ll pull at him like drugs to an addict. All we have to do is wait for him.”
“Of course,” Schessa added. “We’ll alert the AI squad aboard Cinesstar. And we’ll post an additional guard on the docks around her. He’ll come to us.”
Palevi was waiting for him at the entrance to sickbay, but even before the sergeant showed him into the small surgery at the rear he could smell it. The unmistakable scent of burnt flesh clung to everything, accented with the equally unmistakable scent of decay. York had seen many atrocities in his time, but nothing had prepared him for what he found in the small surgery.
There were two examination tables in the surgery, cold impersonal things used for any number of purposes. On one a female marine lay on her back, naked, strapped down, her hands and legs restrained by cuffs, her eyes staring fixedly at the deck overhead, her teeth clenched in the rictus of the agony she’d experienced during the throws of death. Most of her pelvis and abdomen had been burned away some time ago, and lying in the middle of the scorched mess was a badly damaged nerve prod. There were also dozens of small, round, puckered burns covering her body. It was all too clear what had happened. The nerve prod had been modified so it could inflict damage rather then mere pain, then used to torture her little by little, until finally it had been inserted into her vagina, and, either by design or accident, it had shorted badly, and burned away her midsection from the inside out.
Someone was crying, a soft, suppressed whimper. York saw Tathit huddled in a corner seated on the deck, curled up in a fetal position. A blanket had been thrown over her, though an exposed bare shoulder, with a small, round, puckered burn on it made it clear she was naked beneath the blanket, and had been subjected to the same treatment as the young woman on the table.
York walked over to Tathit and crouched down beside her. Mec Notay said, “We found her strapped to the other table.”
“What kind of shape is she in?”
A medic said, “Probably okay, but she won’t let us examine her.”
York reached out to her but she cringed away from his touch and continued to whimper. “Corporal,” he said quietly, carefully, though he gave the word the familiar inflection of command.
She stopped whimpering, her eyes focused and she blinked several times, then looked at him out of the corners of her eyes.
“Who did this to you?”
She took a deep, stuttering breath, continued to stare at him and let it out shakily.
“Corporal,” he said again. “I asked you who did this to you, and I want an answer. That’s an order.” Somehow he knew she needed to hear that.
Again she took a ragged breath, then slowly, carefully, she said, “Sierka.” Her eyes started to retreat back to that blank, unfocused state of a few moments ago.
“Corporal,” he growled at her, and again the familiarity of command brought her back. “The medics are going to examine you. You will allow them to, and you will cooperate with them. That’s an order.”
She said nothing. “I said, that’s an order.”
“Yes, sir,” she whispered. “Very good, sir.”
York stood up. Palevi stepped in his way and growled, “He’s mine, sir.”
“No he isn’t,” York said, shaking his head. “He’s mine, and I want him kept alive, unharmed and unhurt. We may need him, and until I’m done with him, I want you to see to it personally he’s kept well.”
A low, feral growl escaped Palevi’s lips, but he said, “Aye, aye, sir.”
“But when I’m done with him,” York continued, “then he’s yours . . . my word on that, Sergeant, one marine to another.”
Palevi grinned, and York knew he would obey.
“Captain,” his implants barked. “McGeahn here. Luna Prime security is trying to establish contact with us.”
“Ah shit!” York grumbled. He looked at Palevi. “Did you hear that?” The sergeant nodded. “Get someone into an AI uniform, NCO rank, someone who can act. Tell them to answer that call, act stupid and stall for time.”
“They’ve disappeared?” Juessik screamed at the image of the pretty AI lieutenant. “They’ve disappeared completely, you say? Luna Prime is a closed, sealed environment, and you have all of Admiralty Intelligence at your disposal, and you can’t find them?”
She cringed, refused to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry, sir. Somewhere along the line they deviated from the plan you outlined. The d’Hart woman went to some effort to get the security hold on her yacht cleared, and then she, along with Ballin and his marines, just disappeared. The yacht is empty. No one has boarded her, or even approached her, and we’ve been watching her closely.”
“All right. We’ll try to correct for your incompetence. Any vessel, regardless of how large or small, is to be delayed and examined for any possibility they may be aboard her. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
He slapped a switch on the console and her image disappeared.
“What are you doing
with Captain Ballin?”
Juessik spun at the sound of the voice behind him, realized as he calmed his heart it was only Dulell. “Nothing, Arkan. Nothing for you to worry about.”
“No,” Dulell said heatedly. “It’s not nothing. You’re playing some game with him, aren’t you? You won’t even execute him cleanly. You have to torment him. Don’t you see how cruel you are?”
“Oh, Arkan,” Juessik said, rolling his eyes. “Not that argument again.”
Dulell spun on his heal and stormed away.
York dropped into the Captain’s Console and growled orders at McGeahn to show him the conversation between Luna Prime Security and whomever Palevi had chosen to act the part of an AI goon. It was Mec Notay. “Lieutenant Jessup is making his rounds right now,” Notay said, addressing an AI major, “but I’ll relay your message to him immediately. We have forty-two actives here, fully armed and kitted. We’ll cover every entrance, and with the troops you’re placing on the docks, I doubt we’ll need additional support, though Lieutenant Jessup will have to be the judge of that.”
“Very good, Sergeant,” the AI major said. “If Jessup needs anything, have him call me immediately.” He cut the circuit.
York demanded, “What was that about?”
Notay grinned. “Well, sir, apparently you’ve escaped, and they believe you’re headed straight for this ship. They want us to take you into custody as soon as you get here, though they don’t think we’ll have to worry about it since the AI troops on the docks will intercept you first. They’re scared, but they think they got the situation in hand.”
York breathed a sigh of relief. “Keep that AI uniform on.”
Using ring-zero access, York set up a small program to scramble some of the communications port codes for ships docked on Luna Prime. At random intervals it would scramble a couple of port addresses, then a few minutes later unscramble them. Anyone placing a call to a ship on Prime might find themselves talking to the wrong ship. He told McGeahn, “The next time someone calls this ship, answer it yourself and claim to be some other ship, complain that they’d better not screw up our port fees—stuff like that.”
McGeahn grinned. “You’re pretty sneaky, Captain.”
York scanned the intelligence reports on the Directorate force approaching Luna. The fact that it was wholly Kinathin must have something to do with Add’kas’adanna. He checked carefully, found her presence was as much a secret as the approaching Kinathin armada, though with ring-zero access he learned she was being held incognito at the navy base at Mare Crisia on Luna. On impulse he checked on the location of the other feddie Director, Theara. She too was at Mare Crisia.
“McGeahn,” he barked. “Where’s Sab’ach’ahn?”
“I don’t know, sir. Do you want me to find her?”
“I’m here, Captain,” a ghostly voice said from somewhere behind York, and the Kinathin stepped forward to stand beside York’s console. She still wore the reddish-brown patch of dried blood painted on one eyelid. It made her pale blue eyes stand out even more.
York pointed to the screens on his console. “Do you know how to read an imperial situation map?”
“I do, Captain.”
“That approaching Directorate fleet is wholly Kinathin, and we have reports the Kinathins have withdrawn all their ships from Directorate operations. What do you make of that? Is this a kith’ain thing? Something to do with Add’kas’adanna?”
She stared at his screens for a long moment, then turned her head slowly and stared at him. “You understand more than you profess.”
She turned her attention back to the screen. “Where is Add’kas’adanna Kith’at’annan?”
“She’s being held incognito at the Mare Crisia Navy Base on Luna.”
Sab’ach’ahn nodded slowly, as if that confirmed her thoughts. “They’re not approaching in a Kinathin attack formation, though apparently your commanding officers do not realize that.”
“And if we fire upon them first?”
“It will mean battle to the death.”
“And if we don’t.”
“I do not know, Captain.”
“But it’s a kith’ain thing?”
Sab’ach’ahn nodded.
“What was that other word you used—Kith’at’annan?”
“A title. An honorific.” Again she turned those blue eyes on him. “The Kith are the highest caste in the Kinathin class structure. Kith’at’annan . . .” She hesitated. “There is no word for it in your language, or even the concept. It translates loosely to lone warrior, but that too is inadequate. There are only three living Kith’at’annan, and they are honored above all others.”
“And Add’kas’adanna is one of them.” How could he use that to Cinesstar’s advantage?
“Captain . . .” Sab’ach’ahn continued. “The word Kith’at’annan has another meaning. It is also our word for enemy, traitor, or betrayer, and when used with the proper tone and inflection, it is often a challenge, as well as an insult. Entire planets have been devastated in reply to such an affront.”
York looked at her carefully. “Thank you, and please stay close at hand.”
She bowed slightly, stepped back and disappeared into the shadows of the bridge.
York’s immediate concern was escape, and to that end he had to know what ships were within range to intercept them when they made their run for it. There was an AI cruiser docked in the Yard on Prime, two berths down from Cinesstar. There were two AI destroyers in orbit around Luna, another in orbit around Terr, and a dozen AI patrol boats dodging around the Luna-Terr system. But, with the exception of a light destroyer in orbit around Terr, waiting for a berth in Prime’s Yard for needed repairs, there were no regular naval vessels within heliopause. Now that was curious, very curious indeed.
Prime herself was their biggest danger. She had enough weapons to do a lot of damage to Cinesstar during the time it would take them to get out of range. And there were the large orbital weapons platforms orbiting Terr, all controlled by Prime Central. He’d prefer to sneak out quietly, but he didn’t have that option. That meant he’d have to take control of Prime Central, scramble the command grid long enough get our of Lunan nearspace.
York keyed his implants. “Kalee, this is Ballin. Get up here and bring that makeup kit of yours. I’m going to need a good eye again.”
York checked on the location of his former passengers. The empress, her daughter, the old queen mother and Martin Andow were all listed with a location of insufficient access priority. York went to ring-zero and learned they were all being held incognito at Mare Crisia. “McGeahn. Get the d’Hart woman up here, on the double.”
Kalee showed up and started on his chrome-eye and scars.
When Sylissa d’Hart arrived York told her of his unusual find, that the VIP’s who’d been aboard were all now at Mare Crisia. “Where’s the emperor?” she asked.
York checked. “Incognito, Mare Crisia, being held in protective custody because of an assassination attempt.”
She pursed her lips. “Check on Senator Tycho Marin.”
“Incognito, Mare Crisia.”
She threw several more names at him, and each was the same: Mare Crisia. “That’s the leadership of the imperial senate.” She looked at him carefully. “There are rumors of a coup.”
“Who’s involved?”
“It would have to be the Admiralty Council.”
York stared hard at his screens, an idea beginning to form. But then he squashed it and refused to let it mature.
“What’ll you do?”
“Nothing I can do, just escape with my life.”
She stepped around in front of him. “There is something you can do; I saw it a moment ago in your face.”
“No. There’s nothing I can do.”
“You’re lying.”
“Enough,” he shouted, standing. “Get out. You’re not my conscience. Sab’ach’ahn.”
The Kinathin appeared beside him. “Sir.”
�
��Escort Lady d’Hart off the bridge.”
She pursed her lips at him angrily, then turned carefully and left, with Sab’ach’ahn behind her. In her absence the bridge was strangely silent, with York’s officers frozen at their stations staring at him. “Get back to work,” he shouted and sat down.
He called Alsa Yan. “The wounded are still aboard, right?” He didn’t want to abandon any of them.
Yan didn’t try to hide her anger. “They left them all here to rot in the tanks. All but Maggie.”
A cold lump formed in the pit of his stomach. “Maggie?”
“Ya. I don’t know why, but those AI goons took her away from me. Don’t know where she is.”
It took him several minutes to locate her: Magdelena Votak, hospital sector, Luna Prime, room 3G9. Condition: catatonic and non-responsive, with brief and infrequent moments of semi-coherence.
York stood, his heart pounding in his ears, and for several seconds he couldn’t breathe.
“Captain?” It was McGeahn. “Are you all right. You don’t look well.”
“I’m okay,” he shouted. “Pay attention to your station.”
She cowered and mumbled, “Aye, aye, sir.”
He sat back down, forced an artificial calm. “McGeahn,” he barked.
“Sir.”
“Have Palevi, Yagell, Tathit, Jakobee, Temerek, Gant and Cappik join me in the captain’s office in ten minutes. Until then I’ll be in my cabin. Sab’ach’ahn. Come with me.”
He stood and walked off the bridge.
He sent Sab’ach’ahn to his office to wait for the others, then he sat down at the console in his cabin. He put in a call to one of the major media services, though he blanked his picture so they wouldn’t recognize him and flagged the call as Imperial Security. That would indicate to anyone the call was coming from someone with unusually high access rights. It worked, and in seconds he was speaking to the general manager of the service, a Mister Thoring.
