"We seem properly set up for it, yes. Admiral-Offense?"
"Agreed." That male eyed the Emperor. "And this time I am evacuating you before someone can chase you to ground."
"This time," the Emperor said, "I'm attacking, not fleeing." He turned to look over his shoulder at Lisinthir. "Ambassador?"
"At your side, Exalted."
"Let us be about our works."
Lisinthir smiled thinly. "I have been waiting far too long to do so."
The Emperor nodded, the humanoid bob rather than the slow inclination of the Chatcaava. "Did the Alliance vessel complete their transition?"
"They did, and report ready for insertion. Our assault shuttle is also prepared."
"Very good," the Emperor said. "Let us see if I can abort this battle before it begins. And if not-"
"If not," the Worldlord's son said, determined, "we will finish it for you, Exalted."
Plan-prime involved the Emperor descending on the palace to kill the Usurper after the fleet revealed itself to its enemies, who were staring fixedly toward the approach they'd mined, thanks to the Surgeon's hijacked sensor platforms. The Admiral-Offense had ensured their attention by requesting the males on the sensor platforms falsify data indicating the approach of a fleet twenty percent smaller than their actual numbers. He'd asked Meryl's help without any sign of discomfort, and sent the Silhouette, Dusted, to scout their actual route. What few vessels the Pelted had reported had been ambushed and dispatched by the Admiral-Offense's forward screen. The Chatcaava did not believe in Dusters; Lisinthir wondered how long that would remain true after the Silhouette's eloquent proof of concept.
The Admiral-Offense was correct: the situation was as close to perfect as it could be. For now.
There was no question which ship Lisinthir would ride to the surface. Until this was over, his mind-talents and the Imthereli swords would guard the Emperor's flank. After boarding and being shown to their jumpseats behind the pilots' capsule, Lisinthir looked over at the Chatcaavan. The Emperor said nothing; he didn't need to. They'd been practicing for this fight since the Usurper's accession.
"Exalted," said the male in charge of the assault party. "Body armor?"
The Emperor said, "Ambassador?"
"I will protect you," Lisinthir said, voice low.
"I don't doubt it," the Emperor said. "But I would hate for you to feel the entirety of that burden."
Lisinthir began to object, heard Jahir's voice in his head, gently chiding. Spread the responsibility onto other shoulders, cousin. "It is no burden, Exalted. But layers of defense are wise, so long as they don't interfere with the shapechange."
"It is our honor to equip you," the male watching them said. "We may not be able to outfit you with the physical armor, Exalted, but some of the projective ones may function without hindering the Change."
Lisinthir didn't think he was the only one who found the male's acceptance of the Emperor's abilities intriguing. The Emperor's gaze was considering. "By all means, then."
"Regrettably, we do not have anything that would fit you, Ambassador," the male added. "But if you would also like the projective armor?"
"Which does what?" Lisinthir asked.
"It is an emitter that prevents sudden, sharp motions from striking the body," the male said. "Limited in power: we set it to blunt attacks, but not prevent them. It allows the hardware to function for longer periods."
When Lisinthir paused, the Emperor said, "Layers of defense are wise."
"So they are, Exalted. Thank you for the offer. I accept."
As the rest of the Chatcaava marched onboard, they allowed the team lead to fit them with the emitters. They were the last to buckle into their seats, and from their position could hear the males piloting the shuttle.
"The alien vessel is in position."
"The flagship has released tractors. We are cleared for separation."
"Separation is go."
"Alien vessel is reporting in... we have taken up station."
"Moving out."
The Silhouette would be preceding them into orbit, keeping themselves between the planet and the shuttle with its Duster spread to its widest capacity on planetside only. There was some risk that they'd be spotted by some vessel skulking elsewhere in the system, but with the Admiral-Offense about to launch his own attack, they'd decided to gamble.
"Worried?" the Emperor asked, and that was teasing.
Lisinthir rested a hand on the pommel of one of the swords. "Eager."
"Aren't we all," the Emperor said. "Do you suppose he'll die well?"
"No," Lisinthir said. "I don't."
"I don't either."
"Approaching orbit."
"Not long now," the Emperor said, but Lisinthir jerked upright, one hand grabbing the strap anchoring his shoulder. The Emperor leaned forward, frowning. "Perfection?"
Impossible, Lisinthir thought. Utterly impossible. /Cousin?/
A caress on his cheek from the inside of his own body. Lisinthir shuddered. /God and Lady, Galare... how can you be projecting this far?/
A hint of exhaustion, and chagrin. Lisinthir could almost hear him saying, ‘Poorly and at too great a cost.'
"Ambassador," the Emperor said, his lowered voice urgent.
"It is my cousin," Lisinthir told him. "Hold a moment, please." Reaching for that presence, he said, /We are almost there. We come in force, to kill the Usurper. Some of the Pelted with us./
A long empty pause, then a surge of gladness, ferocious and edged in bleeding scrapes that filled Lisinthir's mouth with the taste of iron. /I will tell them it's time./
Before Lisinthir could ask who ‘them' was, Jahir had withdrawn, leaving him trembling. The Emperor's face was in front of his, eyes dilated with worry. "No," Lisinthir said. "I'm well. My cousin... he says he will prepare our allies on the ground."
"He says?" the Emperor asked, and he wasn't the only one listening if the team lead's careful non-expression was any indication.
"I am good with bodies," Lisinthir said. "My cousin's realm is rather more sublime. And his reach, apparently, extraterrestrial."
"I hope there are not many of your kind, Perfection," the Emperor said after a moment, settling back in his seat.
"There aren't," Lisinthir said. "And fortunately all of them are on our side."
Mid-afternoon found the Surgeon inventorying supplies and trying to ignore Kuuvel's witticisms, an attempt at which he was failing.
"Oh look," Kuuvel said. "I've finally found them!"
"Dare I ask."
The other male lifted a package, grinning. "Sponges!"
Before the Surgeon could respond-could even decide how to respond-his entire body seized with alarm as the alien healer skated into his mind. /They're on their way. Now./
"What?" he said, dropping the tablet.
"You know, I've heard staring into space is an early sign of dementia...."
/They're coming now./ The presence departed, his wake prickling the Surgeon's skin with power and making his teeth ache in their sockets.
"Dying Air!" Kuuvel scrubbed his arms. "What was that? What is that!"
"It's beginning," the Surgeon said, abandoning the inventory. "Come!"
"Come where??"
"We're preparing the clinic for casualties... and then we're going hunting."
"I came here to get away from trouble!"
The Surgeon flashed him a grim smile over a shoulder. "Joke's on you."
Deep in the pit of the flagship, Uuvek woke the second stream with the key he'd received with the realtime sensor platform feed, a key that had come with multiple warnings about its short-livedness. He'd waited as long as he deemed prudent, and arranged the new data onto a fresh display as the computer processed it. When it requested a passcode, he leaned into it and said, "Lividity. I say again: Check for lividity."
The display flashed once. Accepted.
The Usurper's talons tapped the desktop, spasmodic. In two days, the former Emperor would arriv
e with the fleet he thought would win him back the throne, a fleet that would fail. But the Usurper hated waiting. This petty conflict was diverting him from more important tasks. He didn't even look forward to the alien dying after witnessing his master's demise. The wingless freak had become a burden; the Usurper hated looking at him, and sometimes considered abandoning him in his cell to rot, and damn what anyone might say about him lacking the horns to enjoy his slaves. The only people left in the palace who mattered were his allies, and would never advance such a belief.
But some part of him hissed that leaving the alien unattended was unwise. Having him tied up and under the Usurper's eye... the freak couldn't possibly accomplish anything that way. The Chatcaavan's gaze flicked up to the body hanging slack on the wall, and he suppressed his tremor. No, best here or dead. And he refused to kill the creature until Kauvauc had died. Again. Properly.
The Usurper growled. He'd entrusted to underlings a matter he should have guaranteed himself. Not this time. In two days, he would finish this, and when the Twelveworld Lord came crawling back in-system to attempt his coup he would find the wreckage of half the Navy. A warning of that magnitude would silence all his recalcitrant warrior lords. They would leave him to his plans at last, and be grateful for his guidance when the new empire's efficiencies bore fruit.
The comm buzzed. Scowling, the Usurper said, "What?"
His second said, "Over a third of the system defense platforms have gone offline."
"What!"
"We are attempting to ascertain the source of the malfunction. Our guess is that the platforms are still active and we are perceiving an outage because the communications arrays have developed a problem."
"The arrays? That makes no sense." The channel filled with lifted voices, too far from the pick-up to be intelligible. "What is it? Speak!" The Usurper bent toward the source of the noises, trying desperately to hear.
"Exalted. The platforms that have gone down are the least of our problems. Another third of them are shooting at us."
The Usurper's body went cold. He lifted his head, slowly, to the alien, the bound and gagged and blindfolded alien. Who nevertheless, the Usurper was entirely sure, was looking at him. And smiling.
"Where are we going?" Kuuvel asked, running in the Surgeon's wake with an arm tight around a medical pack.
"Where aren't we going," the Surgeon muttered. "Back!"
"Back where?"
The Surgeon grabbed the other male and flung him into an alcove to avoid the attention of the males jogging down the hall. Or at least, that was the plan. The footsteps didn't come any closer. In fact, they stopped. Abruptly. Frowning, the Surgeon peered around the wall.
Three bodies were splayed on the floor, twitching. A fourth male was leaning against the wall, clutching his head.
"What under the sky?" Kuuvel said, staring past the Surgeon's arm.
"Aliens," the Surgeon said. "Come on."
"Aliens? What did they do? Poison the palace? And where are we going? Augh!"
"Orbital control should have seen us by now," one of the pilots said to the other. "Even with the alien ship shielding us."
"Orbital control isn't responding to any routing requests," the other replied. "Their traffic management channels have gone silent."
The Emperor glanced at Lisinthir. Lisinthir said nothing. He could sense his cousin's efforts like a wave rolling to shore.
"We are under attack."
The Usurper snarled. "I know that!"
"Not just the platforms. They've come up the bottom of the ecliptic, almost exactly opposite the least time path."
"But the sensor data..."
"Was incorrect, obviously," the other male said. "I am on my way to the flagship to oversee our defense. Will you come?"
The Usurper dug his talons into the desk. To go and crush them personally, and risk dying? Or stay and have his underlings mismanage the situation again? What was preventing them from letting the former Emperor escape his death a second time?
A new comm channel began begging his attention. He slammed a fist on the desk. "WHAT!"
"Exalted! There are people dying in the palace!"
"Are we under attack?" the Usurper demanded. "Here? On the ground?"
"We don't know!"
"How can you not know something so fundamentally obvious?" the Usurper snarled.
"Exalted-"
"Shut up! Remind me to have you executed once I deal with this!" Switching channels, he said, "I will come up as soon as I'm done here. There is a situation in the palace."
"A coup?"
"Not likely. Keep me apprised of your situation." Sweeping all the channels shut, the Usurper strode to the balcony and leapt from it, diving for the base of the palace. People dying, indeed. He would have a look at whatever minor issue had panicked his head of guards and then depart for space.
The Surgeon erupted into the servants' quarters, scattering the people there like skittish animals. "Tsonet!"
The male appeared in one of the doorways. "Surgeon?"
"It's beginning," the Surgeon said. "All servants must hide or they might find themselves involved."
"What about those who want to be involved?" someone said. He looked familiar. The Surgeon frowned, placed him when the male pushed back his fall of hair in a gesture like the one he'd used when the Surgeon had first come here to see Oviin's body. The soft-spoken one who'd said that improving their lot was beyond their powers. He did not look so soft-spoken now, with that flat cold light in his violet eyes.
"Then," the Surgeon said, "your fight has begun, and you should go to it."
Tsonet gestured to that male, and the two of them headed deeper into the servants' quarters. The Surgeon left them to their decisions. Following him, Kuuvel said, "Did you just tell the servants they were clear to kill their masters?"
"The males in the palace now are not their masters." The Surgeon reached the top of the stairs and strode into the arcade that led to the palace's main building. "They are violators who gambled for power."
"And are about to lose," Kuuvel said, skirting a flailing male, stretched out on the ground with a face distorted by terror.
"They have no idea how badly."
The roar of the shuttle pulled the Usurper up short. He landed on one of the terraces and watched the twin vessels coming down from the sky-who would come down, he thought, crazed, who could fly up?-and bared his teeth as the larger of the two set down just long enough to allow a handful of passengers to disembark: wingless freaks! Then it leapt back into the sky, leaving the other to park itself on the fields where once the males of the palace had taken their meals, the same field where the Usurper had stolen the throne from a complacent court.
That vessel, at least, the Usurper identified easily. Cursing, he threw himself off the terrace and flapped hard, back to the top of the Emperor's tower. Landing on the balcony, he commanded, "Barricade!" and heard the field generators wake. "Guards!" The first one to arrive skidded to a stop at the sight of the barred windows. The Usurper slapped his hands together to drag the male's attention back. "Get a contingent into the tower. I want guards at every landing."
As the male rushed away, the Usurper turned his gaze toward the inner rooms. His lips pulled back from his teeth.
"Contact!"
"Go!" the team lead shouted. "We don't know how long we have before they realize we're here!"
The assault team poured from the shuttle. The Emperor unstrapped and stood, stretching. The Ambassador remained in his seat, waiting for the other Chatcaava to clear out. He looked perfectly at ease; in fact, he was sitting with his legs crossed and his hands folded on his knee.
"Not worried, I see," the Emperor observed.
"No," the Eldritch said. "You aren't either."
"I am the opposite of worried," the Emperor said. "I am ready."
"Eager?"
The Emperor tasted that word, found it still true. "Yes. To put this to rights."
The buckle over the Amba
ssador's chest clicked as the Eldritch undid it. Standing, Lisinthir said, "Exalted. After you."
As they disembarked, they found one Chatcaavan waiting to use the hatch to enter: the Knife, determination tightening the muscles in his neck and wing-arms.
"Knife," the Emperor said, head cocked.
"Exalted," the Knife said. "I was a smallcraft tactical specialist before you honored me with my title. If this vessel will be keeping the palace airspace clear, I belong on it."
The Emperor stepped out of the way. "Go."
The Knife nodded once to Lisinthir and pulled himself inside, shutting the hatch behind him.
"All the pieces," Lisinthir said. "They fall into place."
"Or we put them there," the Emperor agreed, and backed off to let the vessel rise.
Felling the palace's malefactors was not arduous. Affecting the Chatcaava in the ships and stations above them was somewhat more so. Doing both at once?
Jahir stretched outward despite his failing strength, found his cousin's aura, bright as fire and sharp as swords. On the ground and coming closer, so close it was effortless to mesh with him. /Imthereli./
/Galare. I come as promised./
/You will find the way open..../
/I sense it, yes. And using yourself cruelly to do it. Have I given you permission to stripe yourself?/
Jahir colored. /Ah... no. You were not present, you see, for me to ask./
A snort so clear he could almost feel the breath of it on his neck. /Cease doing so much, cousin. The Emperor and I can handle the palace./
/So I shall concentrate on... the vessels above us?/
/We have sent the Pelted to deal with the orbitals./
/But the rest of the ships... so many ships, cousin... the Usurper has a fleet!/
/We have brought allies to address it./
Jahir said, hesitant, /Enough allies?/ A flash then: thousands of ships as seen on a tactical display. Jahir jerked in his chains, even as his mind fought hope, wonder, failed of both. /No!/
From Ruins Page 27
