She stopped for a ragged breath, willing her eyes dry.
“I didn’t—”
“You didn’t care. Living fat off the stolen wealth of a thousand systems. Your father—”
“Is a monster.”
She stopped short at the vehemence in his words, and he continued, his subdued voice conveying an intensity she hadn’t seen before.
“I may not have endured your pain, but I still know right from wrong or, at least, I’ve recently come to. You’ll notice the three of us are in the cell together.” He nodded towards the still silent Carth next to him.
Arla remained quiet, but the bitter expression on her face softened a little. She was curious why the famous Cal Mor, golden boy of the aether racing circuits, Prince of the Imperium, and first son of the Imperator, was bound by his wrists and ankles to the wall of an Imperium aethership.
“I’ve always been the black quarg of our family. While my sister was close with our father, I took much more after our mother. When she died, my father was left with no moderating influence on his passions. Combined with the ambition of my sister I am convinced this led to his grand galactic unification project. I was by nature more interested in aether racing, science, and books than conquering star systems, but I went along with their plans. I even commanded the Second Fleet during the final push against the Forli Republic.”
He paused at the memory, his eyebrows drawn down.
“I’m not sure why—”
“I hope you will pardon the necessity of a little background to understand why we find ourselves in this situation.”
“I know why I’m here,” she muttered. “Poor customer selection criteria.”
He continued, a little faster now, “My father, worried by my disinterest in politics, especially as I was to succeed him, hired a new tutor, an acclaimed author and political naturalist from an alien world. His teachings finally captured my interest in the subject but not, I think, in the manner my father hoped. The new tutor introduced me to the banned and subversive section of the palace library. The thrill of reading and examining together something which was forbidden first captured my curiosity, for though it was my right as a member of the royal family, my father had always kept that part of the library under lock and key.”
Cal Mor’s eyes had a faraway look.
“But when the excitement and novelty wore off, the ideas began to take hold. I’d never read anything like this, certainly not in the dry textbooks of my previous Hasani tutors. Here were the thoughts of radicals, anti-religionists, anti-monarchists, freethinkers. Never before had my view of the galaxy and my place in it been so called into question. My tutor, also, had a hand in this, forcing me to think through assumptions and challenge, as he called them, my premises.”
The Prince looked apologetic. “I say all this so you will understand my frame of mind in the events that were to follow.”
“As I questioned my own beliefs, so too did I begin to question the policies of my father. So it will, perhaps, not be surprising that when I made my momentous discovery I did not, immediately, report it to my father the Imperator.”
Arla twisted to look at him.
“It was all because of a mistake in an aether race. The Quinns Cup. I skirted too close to the boundary of a lane, hoping to catch a faster current and gain some advantage. Instead the tip of a ’wing pierced the lane. I was dragged out of lanespace back into normal aetherspace and it was all I could do to keep the ship together, as this was not a transit point. I lost most of the port ’wing in the process.
“I found myself in an uninhabited and still, to my knowledge, undiscovered star system. A search through my telescope found a good-sized planet on which I could land to fix my broken ’wing.
“As I flew across the face of the planet, seeking a suitable location to land, I felt a tug on my ship and it began sinking rapidly to the surface, much faster than even a broken aetherwing would explain. I fought with the craft and turned it from my previous course, and the downward force lessened, my fatal crash avoided, but I made a note of the location of that mysterious force.
“When I finally did land it took me several days to repair my ship, and in between bouts of work I undertook to examine the location of the mysterious force which had almost been my end. A few hours hiking brought me to the place, and I noticed immediately several large, open deposits of a curious type of mineral.
“I found as I approached that my body felt heavier, my movements more difficult. Passing my hand over the material I felt it drawn downward. Finding this curious I chipped off a small piece with my knife, and pocketed it before returning to my ship.
“Upon returning I examined it further but, other than a strange, crystalline sheen, could find nothing to explain its properties. I would study it properly back at the palace, with a real microscope. Absently I placed it on a discarded section of my damaged aetherwing and this was almost my end.
“Within moments I felt an intense heat at my back and as I turned, an explosion knocked me off my feet. A hole the size of a Torrd skull had been blown in the discarded wing section, right where I’d placed the strange material. Naturally, before I left that place I gathered an even larger sample to study, being rather more careful to encase it and keep it from touching aetherium.
“My experiments with the sample over the next few weeks occupied the whole of my passion and soon became known to my sister. Upon her inquiries I excitedly confessed all I had learned about what I now dubbed ‘anti-aetherium’ for its gravitonic nature and explosive interactions with its twin.”
Here the Prince grew silent, and Arla guessed at his thoughts.
“She wanted to turn it into a weapon.”
“Worse. She wanted to use it. She proposed cleansing the planet Forli, where anti-Imperium sentiment was still quite high after the recent war.”
Arla sucked in a breath, “A whole planet? It’s that powerful?”
“It can be made so, purified, refined. I protested Tel’s plans to my father, but was horrified when he agreed with her. ‘An example will ensure obedience, obedience will bring security, and thus the many will benefit from the sacrifice of the few.’ But I couldn’t accept his logic, especially after my recent education. An argument followed and I stormed off in anger.
“Later that night I was awoken by a brisk knock at my door. My new tutor, the alien, appeared much disturbed. He told me he had overheard some dragoons discussing some recent orders. Orders to arrest me and seize the anti-aetherium.
“We made plans then and there to escape, and slipped out of the palace together, with the anti-aetherium safely in our hands. My tutor arranged transport to a small world called Eutheri, I stowed away in his egg sac, and you know the rest of the history.”
“Your tutor was Rahith?”
“Actually his name is—”
“Or’ryth, Second and One of the Philosopher Brood.” The Carth broke his silence.
Arla squinted, trying to recall dim memories, “My father mentioned your name before.”
“I have written much that a member of the Galactic Merchants’ Compact would find agreeable.”
“Oh! The Treatise on Galactic Taxation and its Effect on Trade. We have a copy on the Profit and Luck.”
Or’ryth wriggled impressed amusement, “Not a work the Prince’s father has read, or he would never had hired me.”
“But if you support free—”
Arla was interrupted by the opening of the hatch to their little prison. A well-armed dragoon floated through, the muzzle of his repeater carbine scanning the cell as if to ensure none of them had broken free. Behind him, with her customary predatory grace, came Princess Tel Rani.
She wasted no time, and Arla imagined the tiny space had grown several degrees colder upon her entrance, “We’re nearing the transit point, dear brother.” The last word sounded like a curse. “Our navigator requires a destination.”
Cal Mor — Arla still had a hard time not thinking of him as Toren — shrug
ged. “Surely they know their way back to our home world.”
“Don’t play games with me.” Tel Rani’s snarl was feral, “You know exactly where you discovered the anti-aetherium, and you’re going to lead us there.”
“I most certainly will not.”
A chilling smile crept up the corners of the Princess’s mouth.
“I wonder just how far your so-called principles extend. Private,” she nodded towards Arla, “count to ten and then put a bullet in the skull of that one.”
The dragoon clenched his jaw and aimed the Morely repeater at Arla’s head. She could see his lips move as he counted down silently. The muzzle of the gun was as black as the Kagarath Reach, and infinitely more terrifying.
At ‘six’ the Prince made a choking noise, “Wait! It’s at—”
“Eleven point eight five point two, on the Afarii lane.” The Carth’s voice rolled like stone over the Prince’s. “Prince Cal Mor confided in me before we left the Palace, in case one of us should be killed, its location would not be lost forever.”
Only Arla was looking at the Prince for this, so only she saw the flicker of surprise in his eyes as his Carth tutor revealed the location of the secret planet.
Princess Tel Rani chuckled, “Very well. And if this should not be the place, both you,” she pointed to Or’ryth, “and you,” her other hand crooked at Arla, “will die.”
The Carth was true to his word, and upon exiting the ’lane the Imperium corvette was greeted with a swollen, volcanic planet visible through navigation telescopes.
The corvette’s entire compliment of stingwhips, five in all, made the descent to the planet’s surface, each filled to the brim with a full squadron of dragoons. The first, Princess Tel Rani’s personal gunboat, also carried Arla, Or’ryth, and Cal.
Cal, after a whispered conversation with his former tutor, directed the craft to a large volcanic peak, jutting up from the broken and shattered landscape around it. As they flew closer, Arla could see through the portholes enormous alien faces carved into four sides of the mountain. They were of a race she did not know, and their vicious fangs, curving upwards towards compound eyes, made her shiver.
The little flotilla set down under the gaze of one of these terrible visages and, following Cal’s direction, disembarked and made towards an opening just below the fearsome teeth.
“Move.” The Princess growled at Arla, waving an ornate revolver towards the opening. “If this is a trap,” Tel Rani warned, “she’ll be the first to die.”
Cal and the Carth said nothing, as around them grim-faced dragoons worked the levers on their rifles, chambering rounds with ominous metallic snaps.
As the party grew closer, dragoons fanning out to either side, the opening revealed itself to be an immense doorway, carved into the living rock, and extending in a straight line into darkness. The air around them was dry and hot, and Arla felt sweat drip down her back, though whether from the heat or the fear she couldn’t tell.
She stepped timidly into the opening, but a hard jab from the muzzle of the revolver in the small of her back forced her to move more quickly, and she was soon completely inside the mountain. Several dragoons carried paraffin lamps behind her, and by this weak light she made out the dimensions of the passage. It arched overhead like a Pathlian cathedral, and some distance in front of her it turned abruptly so that she could see no further. Both sides of the passage were lined with concave nooks, and within each of these stood a statue of an alien bearing the same face as those carved on the outside of the mountain.
Arla shivered. In the dancing light of the paraffin lamps the shadows from the statues seemed to twist and writhe. Their extra appendages reached across the arched ceiling as if to enshroud her. In the distance she imagined she heard the clatter of alien claws on the warm stone.
Arla led the entire party, the hundred dragoons, the Princess, her brother, and his tutor, deeper into the mountain. The passage made many turns but never did it branch and she saw no doors at all along its length, only the endless march of statues. She lost track of time, but guessed it had been perhaps half an hour of walking when she rounded another corner and saw a soft orange glow ahead of her.
The glow brightened with each new turn, until soon the dragoons were able to extinguish their lamps as the whole passageway was now lit. One final turn and Arla stopped short.
Ahead of her the passage ended, and it opened onto a vast internal cavern. On either side, falling from a barely visible ceiling far overhead were dozens of glowing strands, which Arla first took to be immensely long glowropes but which, on closer inspection, proved to be thin streams of lava. As they reached the floor of the cavern they became less coherent and flecks of glowing stone splattered the edges of deep channels, carved into the bedrock by decades, perhaps eons, of ceaseless assault.
And stretching before her, like an imperial boulevard on Hasan, was a wide, glowing road, lined on each side with rows of small stone buildings. Each was one story, and all were roughly the same size, but some were ornate, with intricate carvings and grotesque statuary, while others were plain, with smooth columns and unadorned, cube-like walls. All seemed colored a hellacious orange by the boulevard’s light, which she saw was caused by two channels of lava, flowing sluggishly away from her, towards the center of the grotto and fed by several of the glowing streams falling from above.
“That is our destination.” Cal pointed down the wide road.
In almost the exact center of the vast cavern towered a hulking mound. It looked almost like a fermine hive, haphazard and riddled with imperfections. But as the party marched down the wide causeway and grew closer, Arla could see it was a building. Its stone blocks and columns combined in such a way to make it seem almost like a natural feature of the underground chamber.
Arla looked back. The whole company of dragoons was inside the space by now, their dark maroon uniforms looking black in the fiery glow. The Princess, immediately behind her, scowled, the dragoons flanking her held their carbines level. Behind these walked Cal Mor and Or’ryth guarded by several more dragoons wearing severe expressions. The Carth’s undernose was twitching frantically.
Arla turned forward again, puzzled. She didn’t recognize those particular tentacle wriggles. Was it feigned distress? No. Happy fear? That didn’t make sense.
Then she caught movement in the corner of her eye and realized instantly what the Carth had been doing.
Warning. It was warning.
On an instinct she flung herself to the ground, thinking she could claim she tripped if her guess was wrong.
It wasn’t. In the next second the air around her exploded. Gunfire erupted from all sides, a tearing roar that cut through the oppressive underground stillness like a Tornaldian grizz saw let loose in a Chefler pilgrimage tent.
She twisted to see several of the dragoons go down, some soundlessly, others screaming. Arla searched desperately for cover. A hand grabbed her shoulder with a painful, tight grip.
“You’re coming with me.”
The Princess hauled Arla bodily off the street, across a walkway that spanned the little stream of lava, and into the temporary cover of one of the small buildings. All the while, bullets whined overhead and the remaining dragoons, trying now to return fire against their hidden attackers, rushed to get out of the killing zone. They left a dozen or more bodies littering the boulevard in their haste. Cal and Or’ryth were nowhere to be seen.
Tel Rani was enraged. Flecks of spittle flew from her lips as she shouted at the nearby dragoons taking cover with them, “Push around these buildings and clear those riflemen! And if you find my brother, bring him to me that I might kill him myself.”
The troopers jogged off, and then it was just the two of them ducking down in the little alcove of one of the buildings.
She rounded on Arla, who had been eying a quick dash away as the Princess was distracted. Tel Rani’s pistol once more pointed at the young trader’s face, “And you, the great Prince’s little bitch. Yo
u’ll learn what it means to betray the Imperium. We’re bringing order and peace to the galaxy, and you just want chaos. I’ll snuff you out as he watches, just as my father snuffed out your pathetic independent Compact.”
A flurry of shots sounded from the other side of the avenue and the Princess’s eyes flicked away for a split second. Arla kicked out and connected with Tel Rani’s knee. She staggered, and before she could recover the young Compact pilot threw herself at her. Both women went down in a tangle of screams and grunts. The engraved revolver skittered across stone.
Tel Rani was strong, stronger than Arla. She delivered a series of vicious jabs, and Arla’s neck, sides, and head were soon screaming in agony. She held doggedly onto the older woman, but Tel Rani aimed a rough headbutt downwards and Arla cried out. Her nose was streaming blood, and she jerked her head back. The Princess grunted and flung Arla bodily over, working an arm under her neck and pinning her to the warm stone. The pressure on Arla’s neck intensified and her vision closed in on both sides.
The Princess’s breath was hot on the back of her neck. “I would have preferred my brother watch you die, but I’ll settle for making him see your lifeless corpse.”
“My dear sister, I don’t think that’s a wise choice.”
Through her dimming vision Arla thought she saw a shadow on the ground and building in front of her.
“Put her down Tel. I’ll not hesitate to deprive our poor father of his favorite child.”
The grip on Arla’s windpipe slackened, and she drew in a ragged breath. The Princess growled.
“Ms. Lightrider, can you stand?”
Arla nodded weakly, pushed herself to her knees, and forced her legs to lift her to her feet. She looked up. Above them floated a small skimmer. Its short ’wings and open air design marked it as a planetary vehicle. Its nickel-plated sides and mounted Fetler indicated it was a military one.
Defiant, She Advanced: Legends of Future Resistance Page 6
