Ashes of Candesce: Book Five of Virga

by Karl Schroeder

  "But..." She shook her head in horror. "They'll all be incinerated!"

  "Not the Last Line," said Chaison. "Their ships are mirrored and insulated. They can't stay for long, but they'll survive this."

  Leal couldn't speak; and soon, the triumphant chatter in the bridge dwindled, and in somber silence they watched as the attackers turned in desperation, unleashing an inferno of missiles into the contrail of smoke and destruction behind them. The sky lit with the scintillation of thousands of explosions, and the Last Line blockade dissolved.

  Too late. Whatever happened next was made invisible by light as the great tungsten flowers of Candesce unfurled and opened their eyelike lamps.

  * * *

  "THOSE IDIOTS!" INSHIRI Ferance threw something heavy and half the bridge crew ducked. "How could they be so stupid, the animals!" Ferance was screaming, her face red, and Antaea had to fight to hide her disgust. If not for the steadying influence of Jacoby Sarto, she might have fled the Thistle already. It would be so easy, after all: just take a bike, fly to some distant corner of the world and leave the fate of Virga in others' hands.

  As Jacoby moved to calm Ferance down, Antaea took a deep, ragged breath. This all had to be seen through, even if she had no more stomach for it. She turned and left the little bridge.

  The side hatches of the sloop were open and staffers whose uniforms rippled in the headwind leaned out to exchange dispatches with men on bikes. Semaphore men crouched outside on the hull, moving their flag-draped arms in complicated patterns as clerks with writing pads watched. Bikes approaching and peeling off again made a constant howling chorus.

  She hand-walked past the organized chaos to the ship's next bulkhead, and pushed through the hatch there into a quieter space. Ferance's more elite passengers slept or talked in small groups here: members of her cabal, outsiders with perfect features and sculpted bodies; and top officials of the Home Guard in whose presence she would once have felt reverent awe. She still trusted them, though the awe had dwindled. If anyone within the walls of Virga knew the truth of what lay outside, it should be these men and women.

  Moving quietly past them, she opened the next hatch. The ship's hold was full of weapons, medical supplies, and crates of rations. It was hot back here, and sweat gleamed on the face of the prisoner who perched astride one of the portholes. Venera Fanning looked up at Antaea and grinned ferally.

  "Sun's nice this morning, isn't it?" she said.

  "I can't believe even you would make light of so many deaths," said Antaea.

  Venera snorted. "It wasn't my plan to kill them. Not my plan to be here at all."

  "You know why we're here. The current situation is unsustainable. The enemy will keep trying until they finally pierce Candesce's defenses and turn them off, unless we dial down the suppression field to allow us to deploy better countermeasures. That's all this is about."

  Venera arched one eyebrow, then raised her bound-together hands to bring something into the light. With a shock Antaea recognized a well-thumbed copy of the book she'd dictated. "I know your plan well," said Venera. "I got a copy when it first came out, you know, though this one belongs to one of the crewmen. I was hoping someday to get your autograph on mine. --You know, something like 'To Venera, whose husband I slept with.'" She twirled the book, letting it go to become a white pinwheel in the air between them. "You describe the plan you and your sister developed with Gonlin. And of course, it's a grand plan. But it's your plan."

  "It's the Guard's plan now," Antaea countered. "And what's yours?"

  "Leave Candesce alone. You said 'the enemy' would keep trying," Venera went on. "But you are the enemy, and this is your latest try. You're trying exactly what Aubrey Mahallan tried. You're trying to get in. It should be obvious--"

  "I didn't come here to argue," said Antaea.

  "Then why did you come here?"

  She hesitated. It wasn't entirely clear even to her. Or maybe, she was just having trouble admitting it even to herself. "I want you to know I'll protect you," she said. "I won't let Ferance harm you."

  Venera sneered. "How touching. You and Jacoby are on the same page, I see. Did you talk about this together? How you'd present a common front, lull me as a team? He made the same promise, and it means as little coming from him as it does from you."

  "You don't understand." Antaea moved to within an arm's length of Venera. She looked her in the eye. Deliberately and carefully, she said, "Venera, I will give my life to save yours if I have to. We are on opposite sides of this thing, but we are not enemies. Jacoby and I are your friends, and you will come to no harm from these people as long as I still draw breath."

  Venera stared at her for a long moment. Then her lashes dropped to hood her eyes, and she turned away. "Satisfy your conscience however you want," she said. "You're saying this for Chaison's sake, not mine."

  Antaea wanted to slap her. Instead, she drew back, reaching behind her for the hatch. "Believe what you want about my reasons," she said. "But the commitment remains."

  She left the hold and dogged the door tightly behind her. Then she took a deep breath, and braced herself to go up to the bridge and find out what Inshiri Ferance intended to do next.

  * * *

  THE LAST LINE had held, at least for now. Smoking battleships from a dozen proud nations fled before Candesce's morning light, turning to regroup only when they'd passed enough veils of smoke that the savage radiance could be countered by venting water. Trailing new clouds, Ferance's armada sought to align its position with the approaching First Line fleet.

  Chaison Fanning stood on the nose of the Surgeon and turned a brass spyglass this way and that, judging the situation. His own armada--the triumph of negotiation and diplomacy that had come from the grand colloquy--was equal to Ferance's Virgan allies. All told, though, it was less than half the size of the First Line fleet, which consisted of the largest, most sophisticated, and powerful craft in the world.

  A small circle of officers hung in the air near Chaison like uniformed crows. Though she had no function, Leal was out here, too, blinking against the light. A staffer had brought her a helix glass coiled with hot tea, and she'd nearly burst into tears at the small act of kindness.

  "What do you see?" the admiral of an allied navy asked Chaison.

  "The Last Line're holding their position," he replied in a distracted voice. "They're safe inside the exclusion zone. Looks like Candesce is incinerating or blowing away all the debris around 'em. This will give them plenty of maneuvering room and an excellent look at the invaders."

  "And they?"

  "Getting a face-full of smoke and char right now. Having trouble regaining formation. But they have all day, don't they?"

  "It's a problem."

  "What does he mean by that?" Leal asked the staffer who'd brought her the tea. "That they've got all day?"

  "They know we're not a threat," said the man with a shrug. "They can regroup, then hit the Last Line again at dusk. And they can keep that up until they've battered a way through."

  Chaison bent to look over the short horizon of the Surgeon's hull. "We've got no choice, then. We have to hit the First Line before they can regroup with Ferance's armada." Leal heard several sharp intakes of breath from the others.

  One of the admirals sputtered, "But we're no match at all for ... that!"

  "Well, it's true we can't fight them in the open, so we won't."

  The admiral looked around at the available cover. "But sir, with all due respect, you can't mean to use a city as your shield!"

  "No," he said. "I mean to use that." Chaison smiled and pointed with the spyglass.

  The other admiral, who was from the principalities himself, said, "Oh..." in a tone of such dismay that Leal was sure whatever Chaison was proposing must involve catastrophic civilian casualties. She looked where they were all gazing now, but once again all she saw was clouds.

  Except ... "Is it just me," she said, "or are those clouds green?"

  * * *

 
; IT WOULD LATER be called the Battle of the Gardens.

  The Sylvan Gardens was the proudest jewel in the crown of the ancient nation of Ofirium. It was a vast volume of air containing countless cultivated groves and clouds of greenery and flowers. Strung along rope and bamboo tensegrity structures miles long, the foliage was arranged into many fantastical shapes; and those shapes changed.

  One day the Garden might loom across half the sky in the form of a tableau of vast human shapes. They might be fighting or dancing as the whim of the gardeners dictated. The next morning, a coordinated nighttime rearrangement of forests and lakes might have transformed the sky into a heavenly palace, or a flat painting so gigantic that its far corners were lost in haze. Several times, the Garden had taken on the form of the lost Spyre, and refugees from the ancient wheel had wept to see it.

  Chaison Fanning put the Sylvan Gardens between his fleet and the First Line, then once again within the safety of the Surgeon's bridge, gave the order to hurl his battleships forward. "I learned the value of a tree in Stonecloud," he announced just before the Surgeon crashed into a 200-year-old ball of elms. Ancient branches ground and scraped along the hull of the flagship. "Full power," ordered the admiral.

  The rest of the fleet followed his lead, roaring past the incredulous gardeners, demolishing centuries of artistry as they snapped up this or that living bauble as a figurehead.

  "Sir," said the helmsman nervously, "we've no visibility."

  "Proceed," he said. The Surgeon passed sixty miles per hour, then eighty. Such speeds were reckless for any vessel in the crowded air of the principalities; doubly so in this forested region.

  "Sir, we're burning through our fuel at--"

  "Proceed."

  They passed 120 miles per hour. "Sir? Sir!" The helmsman was practically jumping out of his seat. Chaison glared at him.

  "One hundred sixty," somebody else said.

  "Engines idle and deploy braking sails," Chaison ordered. Horns echoed from the open hatches behind Leal, and then the moderate gravity of their acceleration suddenly reversed: down had been aft, and then suddenly it was to forward. Leal gripped the arms of her chair and listened as protesting branches clutched at and scoured the armored hull again--this time, as the speeding grove left the Surgeon like a ball from a racket.

  In this way, Chaison's relief force threw an entire forest at the First Line fleet.

  "Fire incendiaries into our little package," Chaison said. "Let's see if we can get their hair smoking."

  The First Line had spent their careers among the icebergs and mists of outer Virga. They had trained in total darkness to defend the walls of the world along thousands of miles of empty air. It would be fair to say that none of them were comfortable with the density of the skies here. None had expected to suddenly be facing a wall of flaming forest coming at them at over a hundred miles per hour.

  "All ships: knife formation," said Chaison. "Let's see if we can cut them in two." The semaphore men went into their dance, and outside the portholes Leal glimpsed ships peeling off to either side of the Surgeon. Chaison, whose back was to the prow so he could watch the projection on the aft wall, leaned forward, cursed softly, then shouted, "Fire forward batteries!"

  A gigantic sound came, and pulling and overturning and bright light, and Leal curled into a ball and put her hands over her head.

  * * *

  HOURS LATER, A small twin-engined courier ship nosed its way into the smoking remains of the garden. From zenith to abyss, the sky was crowded with soaring vessels, tumbling debris, and welling balls of flame. Spheres and teardrop-shapes of dissipating smoke hung like the ghosts of destroyed battleships. Missile, bike, and ship contrails threaded through the space like the web of some vast, drunken spider.

  The little ship slewed past hanging bodies and the writhing shapes of injured men. Here and there airmen wearing angel's wings were leaping to ally and enemy alike, bringing bandages and water. Hospital ships sporting the crests of a hundred nations soared in and out, catching the wounded in nets without slowing down.

  It was late afternoon, but Chaison Fanning's relief force had kept the First Line from regrouping with the remnants of Ferance's fleet. Beyond the local chaos, Ferance was trying on her own to push the Last Line back to Candesce.

  All four fleets had local knots of density where smaller ships and bikes dove in and out like fish darting at some piece of food. Their flagships nestled deep in these well-defended kernels, and the little ship headed for one of these. It was largely ignored by the dogfighting bikes and maneuvering cruisers, though if any had looked closely they would have seen that it was towing something strange--a black iron ball a dozen feet across, a furnace, maybe, or chemical tank.

  The vessel ran up its flags and made to enter the zone around the Surgeon. It was instantly surrounded by bikes and catamarans, and boarded in short order.

  Minutes later, an escort formed around it and hove to next to the flagship.

  * * *

  "SIR, THE FIRST Line have regained their position between us and Candesce."

  Chaison Fanning swore.

  The bridge stank of sweat and stale air, yet Leal was afraid to leave her seat. They'd exchanged broadsides with an enemy battleship two hours ago, and she didn't want to face whatever carnage she might find if she went aft. Yet the increasing desperation of the men around her, those men who should be most in control, was agonizing. For a long time now she'd been unable to look away from Chaison Fanning, and she felt she'd learned every nuance of expression he was capable of.

  "We need to reinforce the Last Line," said one of the admirals. "Any ship that can manage it should break off and--" Chaison shook his head.

  "If they break formation they'll be picked off. There's a sphere of gunships around us now. We break out as a unit or not at all."

  "But if we coalesce they'll surround us. And it's almost dusk! If Ferance gets to the sun--"

  "She won't." Chaison turned to his loyal officer Travis, who hung in the air, ramrod-straight, near the command chair. "It's time," he said. Travis nodded and left the bridge without a word.

  "Issue the order to regroup," said the admiral. "Sphere formation, centered on this ship."

  The alliance's admirals began shouting, and even though she knew little about military matters, Leal, too, stared at Chaison in disbelief. It was obvious that if Chaison brought the ships into a tight formation now, the First Line fleet could simply surround it and pick off the defenders at its leisure. Worse yet, it would be free to pin them down with a small contingent while sending the bulk of its forces on to reinforce Ferance's drive for the sun.

  Yet Chaison held up a hand against the protests. "A tactic works until it stops working," he said. "This one's stopped working. Something new is called for."

  The admirals exchanged looks of outrage. "But what--?"

  "Sir!" The aft hatch, through which Travis had exited, was open, and a junior officer was waving tentatively at Chaison. The bridge staff glared at him and he began to back away, but the admiral waved him in.

  "What is it, son?"

  "News from Brink, sir."

  "Can it wait?"

  "No, it can't."

  Leal shouted and whirled in her seat. Framed in the doorway, looking tired and disheveled, but smiling, was Keir Chen.

  24

  "YOUR BELOVED ADMIRAL is moving to save his ass," observed Inshiri Ferance. "Panic's never a pretty sight."

  Antaea thought she was going to be sick. Since they were hanging well back from the main battle, Inshiri had come out to stand on the prow of the Thistle, holding on to its needle-shaped ram with one hand. The rest of her team was scattered in the air around her, all clutching binoculars and telescopes. While Antaea had tried to stay inside and out of Inshiri's way, Remoran had insisted she be present to observe whenever he was off the bridge. And Inshiri had decided to torment Antaea in tiny ways, apparently to blow off steam.

  It was hard to make out the details through a hundred miles
of smoke and debris-laden air, but it was clear that the First Line fleet was pulling itself together, returning to the threatening thunderhead shape it had held before Chaison's attack. The flickering orange of combat that had been distributed evenly through that distant smear was collapsing into a ball. Fanning's brave fleet was being routed.

  "Just in time," said Jacoby. Candesce's spectrum was lengthening as its component suns shut down.

  Some of the delegates who'd been selected to enter Candesce were climbing out of the ship to observe the mayhem for themselves. Remoran himself was here, and other Home Guard leaders; the surprise to Antaea had been the arrival of the outsider, Holon, and some of his compatriots, just prior to the battle. Inshiri was usually careful to behave herself in front of these officials, but her patience--and manners--was wearing thin. "Tell your people to stop messing around and get down here," she said to Remoran. "It's time for us to make our move."

  Holon raised a perfect eyebrow. "The Last Line's still in our way," he pointed out. "We don't have a safe corridor."

  "Why, my dear Holon, you disappoint me. This was never going to be safe." Inshiri scowled at the sparkling of the exclusion-zone battle. "More importantly, we're all going to run out of fuel or clean air soon. Isn't that true, General Secretary?"

  Remoran nodded. "Signal the rest of the insertion group," he told her. "We're going in as soon as the First Line starts to move our way."

  The signals were sent, and as Antaea went to reenter the sloop with the others, she could feel the air trembling with the noise of jet engines spinning up. She was one of the last to enter, and found the square of shadow in the hatch a black absence compared with the light of a hundred suns that radiated from the hull.

  As she grabbed the edge of the hatch, something tickled the back of her hand. She flicked absentmindedly at it, heard multiple slapping sounds, and looked over to see a bright-spalled bullet hole right next to her index finger. A line of them wandered away across the Thistle's hull. They hadn't been there a moment ago--