by Jo Zebedee
Rinharte glanced back over her shoulder. The marines had seen to the serjeants, who now lay scattered about the gangway. Blood was smeared across the decking, glistened wetly on white coveralls, was painted on the marines’ boarding axes, gauntlets and toe-caps. One of the serjeants had a badly-broken leg. Bloody shards of white bone poked through a rent in his coveralls. Two were clearly dead. Including the one whose left arm ended just below his shoulder.
“Since you will clearly not be accompanying me to Payo,” said Miekka, “I have a message for the Admiral. The Emperor wishes it known that her masquerade has been known from the first and that He has always felt it inappropriate of her. She has a place, and He desires that she return to that place. There will be no repercussions should she wish to rejoin Him. No repercussions for any member of her crew.”
Rinharte blinked in surprise. A full pardon? The crew of Vengeful were technically deserters, a crime punishable by death. They had disobeyed all four obligations of the Subjects’ Charter: they did not owe ultimate allegiance to the Person of the Emperor, they did not owe immediate allegiance to their oath-holders, they did not pay tax or tithe, they were military personnel yet they had ignored the Emperor’s call to arms.
“We have too much to do,” she said brusquely. “Tell the Emperor—” She broke off, astonished at her own temerity. “Tell your Knight General that we will fight our own battles. Even now we are on the road to our battlefield. The brigandage was… regrettable but necessary. But events have proven that it was the right path to take.” Her voice hardened. “We must stay on that path.”
Miekka bowed. “My lady.” He turned to Kordelasz. “I hope to meet you again, sir. In less… combative surroundings.”
The marines stood aside as the knight-captain stepped forward. He passed through the hatch into the gangway leading back to the ramp. Moments later, he was gone.
“Will they try again?” Kordelasz asked.
“Who? The knights stalwart?” Rinharte shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. They’ve made their point.” She grimaced. “Of course, it depends on the Emperor’s reaction to our refusal.”
“Should you have refused?”
“Certainly,” Rinharte said, surprised. “Given everything we’ve learned, we can’t give up now.” She put a hand to the hilt of her sword. She had not even drawn it. “Boat-Sergeant Alus?”
“Ma’am.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to detach you and your boat-squad to the Intelligence Office. We can’t have word of a possible full pardon getting known on the lower decks. I’ll make arrangements when we get back aboard Vengeful.”
“Ma’am.”
The Intelligence Office, Rinharte reflected sourly, was increasing in size with each shore mission. She now commanded a marine-lieutenant and an Imperial Marine boat-squad. She wondered how she was going to fit them all into her department’s small office. And what she would do with them.
Rinharte could hear the fizz of cannons firing when she was five yards from the open hatch into the boat-deck. With each crackle of directed-energy came the sharp explosive report of the beam hitting its target. She noted each firing of a cannon and judged there to be no more than two.
Alus and his squad reached the boat-deck hatch. They blocked it, protecting Rinharte and Kordelasz with their bodies. Looking around the boat-sergeant, Rinharte saw blue-clad bodies strewn about: Lieutenant-Commander Obrona’s defensive line of press-ganged provosts. All were dead. Just inside the hatch crouched three squads of Vengeful marines. They were using power-carts and ordnance-dollies as cover. The three surviving knight stalwart serjeants—one manhandling a cannon by himself—had them pinned down from a position behind the crumpled prow of the jolly boat.
The boat lay slewed across the boat-deck. Its lower hull had been ripped and torn by its crash-landing. One stub-wing had snapped off during the impact—it sat against one bulkhead, a mangled slab of metal. Body parts—arms, legs, limb-less torsos, heads—projected from beneath it. The wing had scythed through Harab’s rateds before coming to rest. A wreckage of boat-deck fittings, fixtures and tools were strewn across the deck. Wisps of smoke drifted across the chamber. There had been a fire.
“Dear Lords!” breathed Rinharte. She had never seen so much confined destruction before. It was a wonder the frigate’s hull had not collapsed. A hit from a torpedo or a main gun wreaked far more devastation and there was little left except blackened cavities.
Kordelasz tapped her on the arm. “We have to get across there.” He pointed at the slot of star-speckled darkness that was the boat-deck’s entry. Its frame was badly buckled. The armoured door would never close again.
“Right through the serjeants’ field of fire,” pointed out Rinharte. “We’ll never make it.”
A beam from a cannon hit a power-cart. The cart’s top exploded upwards, spraying shrapnel. The marine crouched behind the cart was bowled over backwards. He was lucky the directed-energy beam had not hit him. He did not stay lucky. He had lost his cover. A second beam caught him on one shoulder and the left side of his torso erupted. Shards of armour, blood, bone and guts burst across the decking. Rinharte saw that half of the marine’s head had gone. And one arm and most of his chest.
“You plan to cross that?” she asked Kordelasz incredulous. “They’re marksmen!”
The marine-lieutenant frowned. “We’ll have to take them, then.”
Rinharte could not see how. The serjeants were clear across the boat-deck and well-protected by the hull of the jolly boat. Vengeful’s marines were armed only with boarding axes, close-order weapons. They could do nothing.
Kordelasz scanned the battlefield. He straightened as his eyes alighted on something. “The ordnance-lift,” he said.
“It’s in front of the serjeants, Mr Kordelasz,” pointed out Rinharte. “It’ll get you closer, but not close enough.”
Kordelasz shook his head vigorously. “No, ma’am. I don’t plan to use it for that.” He slapped Alus on the upper-arm. “Boat-sergeant, those two marines. Speak to them.” The marine-lieutenant pointed at a pair of green-and-tan-clad figures stretched out behind an ordnance-dolly. “Tell them to push the dolly over to the lift.”
Alus nodded. He bent to the caster fixed to his lapel and whispered commands.
“Where’s the ordnance-lift’s controls?” Kordelasz asked Rinharte.
“In the boat-deck control-room,” she replied.
“Can you get a torpedo up here?”
“Why?”
Kordelasz ignored her question. He grinned wildly. “Do you know how to arm a torpedo?”
She nodded slowly. She had a horrible suspicion she knew what the marine-lieutenant intended. “Of course. All midshipmen do a stint in Gunnery.”
“We’ll fire it at the serjeants!”
Rinharte stared at Kordelasz. “Are you mad? How?”
“We’ll launch it on a dolly.”
“It’ll take out the entire bulkhead! You’ll open the boat-deck to space!”
“So? We were going to jump through the force-curtain anyway. What difference does it make if we start breathing vacuum here instead of over there?”
“You can’t launch a torpedo inside a ship!” protested Rinharte.
The two marines behind the ordnance-dolly were on their hands and knees. They shuffled forwards, pushing the dolly ahead them. They kept their heads down.
The dolly reached the ordnance-lift. With some careful jockeying, it was rammed into position. Rinharte turned to Kordelasz. The marine-lieutenant gestured peremptorily at her. She shook her head in disbelief. Kordelasz’s plan was ludicrous. Foolhardy. Insane. Desperate.
And perhaps their only chance.
The smallest member of Alus’s squad led Rinharte back along the gangway and around a corner to the control-room’s access-ladder and clambered up it swiftly. Rinharte heard a series of thuds and a chopped-off scream. Moments later, a hooded and helmeted head appeared in th
e ceiling hatch. “All clear, ma’am.” The voice was female.
Rinharte climbed up the ladder to join the marine. A dead petty officer lay in a corner of the control-room. A bloody wound in his side gaped wide. Innards spilled across one thigh onto the floor. The stench was warm, immediate and foul. Rinharte grimaced. She couldn’t help noticing the fresh blood dripping from the marine’s boarding axe.
The control-room was located halfway up the forward bulkhead of the boat-deck. An armoured window looked over the cutters’ berths onto the battle below, giving Rinharte an excellent view of the disposition of Vengeful’s marines and the surviving serjeants. From her vantage point, the havoc wreaked by the crashed jolly boat was painfully obvious: gashes cut in the decking, smashed and crushed fittings, bodies and body-parts scattered about the chamber. She could see the serjeants crouched behind their cover and was impressed at the position they had chosen for themselves. Their field of fire took in most of the boat-deck, yet they were impregnable behind the jolly boat’s hull.
It was the work of no more than ten minutes to configure the ordnance delivery-mechanism to load a torpedo onto the ordnance-lift and carry it up from the magazine to the boat-deck. The system was controlled entirely by a computation engine, the magazine sealed to the crew. Once the console indicated that the torpedo had reached the boat-deck, Rinharte turned to go. The marine dropped through the access-hatch and called up an all-clear. Rinharte climbed down the ladder.
By the time she reached the hatch at which Kordelasz, Alus and the remainder of his boat-squad lurked, the two marines by the ordnance-lift were working their way backwards on hands and knees. They towed the loaded dolly with them. The serjeants could not fire at them for fear of causing the torpedo to implode, but surely they understood what use the torpedo would be put to.
“We’ll have to clear this gangway,” she told Kordelasz. “The backwash from the torpedo’s drive-tube will scour it clean.”
“Will we be safe in the control-room?”
Rinharte barked a disbelieving laugh. “Safe? After a torpedo implodes? I very much doubt we’ll be safe anywhere.”
Kordelasz repeated his question.
“No.” Rinharte sighed. “The implosion will take out the control-room window. It’s armoured but not sufficiently to withstand a torpedo hit.” She took in Kordelasz’s fevered gaze. He was serious about his madcap plan. She knew she could not dissuade him. She let out another sigh. “If we wait in the gangway below the control-room, we should be protected. Then Boat-Sergeant Alus and his squad can take us out through the control-room window.”
The marine-lieutenant nodded.
Rinharte stood directly beneath the access-hatch to the control-room. She had a marine to either side, gripping her upper arms tight enough to cause pain. Kordelasz stood nearby, flanked by Alus and another marine. The torpedo sat in its dolly, jammed into the hatchway. A length of gangway and a corner was no real protection from the drive-tube but it would have to suffice. Rinharte had disabled the torpedo’s fail-safes and configured it to launch after ten minutes. Alus had informed Vengeful’s marines trapped in the boat-deck of the marine-lieutenant’s plan. They were to seek what cover they could find. Not all would survive—
“Now!” yelled Kordelasz.
A low whine crept along the gangway. The air at the corner grew distorted. Rinharte could not be sure if the efflux from the drive-tube was warping the bulkheads or merely her view. The crunching and splintering of metal and wood being ripped apart and squeezed tore her conscience. The death-knell of a warship—
A jet of flame roared past, deafening, monstrous. Something had ruptured, an out-gassing of fuel perhaps. A wave of heat swept over Rinharte, crisping her hair. She tried to breathe in but there seemed to be no air in the gangway. And what little there was burned with a temperature that was painful. She turned away and shielded her eyes.
Something shot past, too quick for focus.
There was a moment of vertiginous silence.
A thunderous “whoompf!” blew along the passage. That was the torpedo imploding, its warhead ripping a hole in the universe.
Sound and light battered Rinharte. Bulkheads along the gangway burst and tore. Great forces expanded in an instant, roiling and writhing, ripping and shredding, snuffing the wall of flame in the gangway. Above, a bright and rapacious demon scoured the control-room clean of its contents. Rinharte and the marines, protected in their deep niche, rocked and hunched forwards.
The after-effects of the implosion were sucked away as swiftly as they had filled the boat-deck. A gale whipped Rinharte’s jacket about her. It sucked the air from her breath. Debris cartwheeled along the gangway. Rinharte catapulted upwards, propelled by the two marines gripping her. She closed her eyes. She could not breath. She did not want to see. She could imagine the destruction the torpedo had wrought. The rapidly-diminishing atmosphere was proof the frigate’s hull had been breached. She felt swift movement, inertia and vertigo as the marines leapt across the boat-deck, flying now the chargers beneath the decking were useless. Her pulse thundered in her ears. Stars speckled her vision, bright against the black of her tightly-closed eyes. She fought down panic. She could not breathe. Cold bit at her exposed skin. She felt herself slipping into unconsciousness—
It was the end.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Ormuz was dreaming. It was the second night since leaving Ophavon and entering the toposphere. Captain Plessant had chosen not to travel directly to Kapuluan, a trip of four weeks duration. Divine Providence would break its journey at Bato, a minor world en route. Bizarrely—and this was one of the peculiarities of topologic travel which Ormuz had never understood—breaking the trip would actually decrease the total time dilation. From Ophold to Bato was three weeks in the toposphere, or seventy-nine days in the real universe. From Bato to Kapuluan, it was a single week, or nine days. A total of four weeks spent in the toposphere, but eighty-eight “real” days. Travelling directly to Kapulan entailed spending four weeks of topologic travel… and yet 140 days would have passed in the real universe. They would “save” fifty-two days simply by stopping at Bato.
Ormuz was dreaming. He had no idea how long he had been asleep before a familiar omnipotence overcame him. He felt electric. If he spread his fingers, he could almost imagine lightning shooting from their tips.
He was there. Wherever “there” might be. A universe of no form and no colour. Stellar objects which burned with a black flame. He could touch them all. Facts, data, information… he sensed it all. Not… knowledge, but something that impinged on his consciousness in a similar fashion. He felt buoyed by irresistible laws, by structure and constancy. Guided by some mysterious internal compass, he rotated and… moved. Beneath him an ebon star drew close. He reached out with a thought, and a prominence broke its surface. It leapt up before him, roiling and folding over on itself.
He saw confused images buried deep within the geyser confronting him. Some flashed to the surface, following no logic or rationale he could fathom. He saw… Riz Gotovach, black-haired and clad in white trousers and a navy blue coat. Epaulettes on the jacket’s shoulders and assorted insignia indicated it was a uniform.
He saw… a man with dark hair and flashing eyes. He wore dun coveralls and a pea-green jacket. Another uniform. He flourished a sword with speed and precision.
He saw… a huge warship lurking in the vicinity of a ringed gas giant. Its hull was an elongated torpedo-shape with a complex superstructure festooned with aerials and close-defence weaponry.
He saw… a tall, stern woman with a shaved head, wearing a black, insignia-less uniform of coveralls and reefer-jacket. It was not an OPI uniform, despite the colour.
He concentrated in an effort to probe deeper.
The fountain of black light abruptly whipped away from him. He jerked in surprise, and looked down. It had rejoined the star as if it had never been.
A figure appeared before him. It was human, slim an
d well-formed, but devoid of features. Pale blue, it glowed with faint light. The head was a hairless faceless ovoid, the body smooth and sexless.
Ormuz recoiled in shock. The colour and featurelessness were alien. Who are you? he demanded.
The figure ignored his question. It lifted its arms above its head, raised its chin, and then brought its arms down in an encompassing gesture. Someone like you, it said.
A clone of my father?
A clone, yes. Of your… “father”, no. Our DNA is far older than a single generation.
Ormuz could not judge the size of the blue figure. It seemed an arm’s length away and no taller than himself. He reached out but could not touch it. Its skin had the lustrous texture of an expensive fabric. He saw the play of muscles beneath the glowing blue flesh. But it had no nipples, no sex, no finger- or toenails, no ears, no bumps or indentations to mar the oval perfection of its face.
What is this place? he asked.
The figure danced, holding out its arms, its gaze—if it had eyes—fixed on him. The nomosphere, the wellspring of all physical laws, it replied.
Why am I here? Why is it I can come here?
The figure brought its hands together, and held them out, cupped, before it. A spinning helix suddenly appeared, hovering inches above its palms. It is written in… this. The hands closed, and the coil of DNA vanished as magically as it had appeared.
Why can I see things here? Ormuz asked. Know things?
The figure was silent.
Why? Tell me, Ormuz demanded.
I cannot help you. Not now. Perhaps later. The figure began to slowly revolve. The speed of its revolutions increased. Its gleaming blue flesh blurred and stretched. Its form ran like water, losing its humanoid shape, became a column, a ribbon of blue flesh. It twisted and turned, warped into strange topologies, folded and knotted in complex, baffling paths—
As abruptly as it had appeared, it… vanished.
