A Prison Unsought

by Sherwood Smith

  Gelasaar chuckled. “No, I’m sure it’s not.”

  Mortan smiled. “I assume, Matilde, that you propose cutting the shields to give us sufficient power to lift off.”

  She nodded and tapped her console. The screen switched to a diagram, which Kree studied. “That will expose the outer lock door to direct assault.” He motioned at the screen. “From that, I’d say it’ll take about an hour to lift after the shields power down.”

  “That’s my estimate.”

  Mortan shook his head. “Iffy. Very iffy. If they damage the lock sufficiently, the loss of streamlining, in the absence of shields, will doom us.”

  “Do you think you can regain control of the lock?”

  Excitement thrilled through Kree—excitement and fear—at what that question portended. A lifetime of habit urged him to exert every nerve to preserve the life of the Panarch. That was his oath, and with every passing hour the meaning intensified. “We can certainly crack it manually, but doing so will make it impossible to reengage the hatch motors.”

  “In other words,” the Panarch said, “we can open it, but we can’t close it again and hold it against a determined assault.”

  Mortan nodded.

  “We’ve no choice,” said Gelasaar. “If the damage makes it necessary, we’ll have to open the lock and let them do their damage inside until we can lift off. But I’m guessing that they’ll want the ship intact.”

  “Whoever possessed it would rule this world.” Mortan spread his hands to take in all Gehenna. “But the interior hatch won’t hold anywhere near as long. They’ll undoubtedly use some sort of battering ram.”

  “That’s no problem,” Caleb said. “Two people with jacs can hold the corridor once the hatch fails. There are some breathing masks in the locker.”

  “This all assumes we can convince the Rifters to cooperate,” said Yosefina.

  “They can’t prevent me from shutting down the shields.” Matilde grinned. “And maybe it will hurry their surrender.” She sent a questioning glance at the Panarch, who gestured, palm up.

  “Do it.”

  ABOARD THE SAMEDI

  Tat opened her eyes and shrank back against the deck when she saw Morrighon bending over her, his hands on his knees. Then her eyes managed to focus. Lar and Dem stood behind Morrighon, looking anxiously at her over his shoulders.

  He’s going to have all of us killed.

  Morrighon straightened up and stepped back. Lar knelt beside her and lifted her head. “You all right, Tat?”

  She levered herself up on her elbows, watching Morrighon’s twisted smile warily, and groaned as the cabin lurched. The last remnants of the brain-suck in her system lent the scene an aura of unreality; she kept expecting Morrighon’s teeth to fly out of his head at her, or Dem’s head to flit away like a deflating balloon.

  Lar murmured, “It’s all right, Tat. They won’t space us.”

  Morrighon added, “Your cleverness has saved all your lives.”

  The deck canted and the air rang with a squealing rumble. Morrighon set his feet more firmly and continued. “This ship is presently engaged in battle with a Panarchist battlecruiser. It will be destroyed shortly.” He turned away and walked to the hatch, speaking over his shoulder. “Come. Now. We are preparing to debark.”

  Lar and Dem lifted Tat to her feet and she staggered out of her cabin and down the corridor after Morrighon and the two gray-clad guards with him. He took them to the port landing bay. They saw no other crew on the way; the gravs had been set at normal gee, which enabled the Bori to run, Tat stumbling in exhaustion, her cousins holding her up on either side.

  As they stepped through the hatch, they heard the whining rumble of engines warming up, emanating from the deadly, thorn-studded shape of a small warship that practically filled the bay. Morrighon chivvied them up the ramp, which began to retract almost on their heels.

  Tat’s heart squeezed her throat when Morrighon pushed her through the hatch ahead of him onto the bridge, and Anaris swiveled around in the command pod to transfix her with an unwinking gaze of cold appraisal. She swayed as she glanced to either side, but her cousins were no longer with her.

  Morrighon grabbed her arm and pulled her to a console as Anaris swiveled back and raised his head to watch the main screen. It was slaved to the bridge of the Samedi; Tat saw the wake of a skipmissile dissipating in the midst of a flaring chaos of energy. The blacked-out limb of the system’s primary loomed huge to one side. Anaris tapped at his console. Another screen lit, showing the bridge of the Samedi. Even from here, Tat could see that Fasthand was almost out of control—and the rest of the crew very little better.

  “This console is linked to the Samedi’s computer,” Morrighon said, pulling her attention away from the fearful chaos on the bridge. “We do not wish to give Fasthand warning of the exact moment of our departure, lest he bring weapons to bear, despite the presence of two Tarkans on the bridge. Can you momentarily cut the ship’s shields from here?”

  “Think so. Will take a moment to check.” She shut her eyes against the pounding of a headache, then opened them slowly. Breathing deeply, she thought, I can do this. Her fingers danced over the console as she queried the system. Awareness gradually widened, and she listened to the feed from the bridge.

  “Captain,” said Cefas on screen, who’d taken Lar’s position at Damage Control. “That corvette in the port bay is warming up.”

  Fasthand looked over his shoulder to address someone Tat couldn’t see—the Tarkans, she guessed. “You hear that? Your master’s leaving you to die.”

  A voice replied in surprisingly clear Uni, “That is our function and our honor.” It added with heavy irony, “You are fortunate that we are here to ensure that you, too, die with, honor.”

  Fasthand turned back to the main screen with a wordless snarl, as Tat’s console bleeped.

  “I can do it,” she reported, her head panging every time she moved.

  “I set a tractor to restrain this ship,” Anaris said. “Release it at the same time.” The sound of the engines rose to a grumbling scream. “On my mark, then,” he continued.

  The main screen switched to a view out the bay lock. One of the secondary displays showed the interior of the bay, its fittings melting and boiling away as the radiants of the ship blasted sun-hot plasma into its interior.

  “Three. Two. One. Mark.”

  Tat slapped the go-pad on her console, canceling the ship’s shields for a few seconds and cutting the tractor beam.

  The edges of the bay abruptly vanished as the warship exploded from the doomed destroyer; the head-bloating lurch of skip transition followed almost instantaneously.

  Tat let her breath out in a gusting sigh as Anaris dropped the ship back into real-time and brought it about with sure motions of his hands. Then she watched in amazement as, rather than setting course out of the system, he merely pulled them back behind some debris and began to watch the battle.

  She risked a glance at Morrighon, whose face showed nothing.

  Tat crouched down in her pod, ignored by all on the bridge. Her head ached, her throat was dry, her guts churned. But she dared not even ask for water, not with Anaris as company. Only one of the Catennach Bori, she decided, could understand the Dol’jharian mind, and for that knowledge, the price was far too high.

  TEN

  GEHENNA

  A runner pounded up beside Londri and flung himself flat next to her, tear tracks marking pale paths down his soot-coated face. “Aztlan reports he’s holding the Tasuroi. His elite guard is in position for an assault on the ship, in concert with Gath-Boru and the Ferric Guard.”

  She nodded—that was the last of the forces she needed—then snapped her head back as something caught her attention. She watched carefully as another massive rock hit the shuttle.

  “Stepan!” she shouted. “The rocks aren’t bouncing anymore!” This was what they had hoped and prepared for.

  He wriggled up beside her, and they both squinted through t
he haze of smoke. A short time later another massive rock smashed into the ship; a shallow dent appeared in the hull.

  “Have them stop the heavy artillery,” he said urgently. “They’ll damage it beyond repair. And have them aim for the cannon with the light artillery before you begin the assault.”

  Londri dispatched a runner and motioned a herald over. He listened to her instructions and then raised the war horn to his lips. A glissade of notes ripped out of the wooden bell.

  The battlefield quieted. She could clearly hear the crackle of flames and the distant shouts of the fight with the Tasuroi. Sweat trickled down her back inside her armor; the long summer day was waning, but it would be hours before the air began to cool—and far longer for those inside the ship.

  Then, nearby, she could hear the creaking of a catapult being made ready. Their lighter payload would necessitate a flatter trajectory to inflict meaningful damage—they would necessarily be exposed to return fire. Fresh billows of smoke began to roll toward the ship as the returning horn calls began to signal the readiness of the other artillery.

  Inside the ship, An’Jayvan Neesach watched horrified as Kaniffer pounded on the console, his eyes bulging. “You’re bugchatz crazy!” he screamed. “Those rocks’ll tear the ship apart!”

  The reasoned reply of the little nick woman didn’t make any impression on Kaniffer. He slapped the com off and spun around to face Neesach. “Why didn’t you hardwire the shields, you stinking blit?” he yelled. Sweat dripped from his scanty hair.

  “It’s not like that Morrighon chatzer left me a lot of time,” Neesach screamed back, noting with satisfaction how Kaniffer winced. She’d always hated her voice, but it made a fine weapon at times like this. “I worked on the stuff we’d need to be safe from the Tarkans. How was I supposed to know . . .”

  A shattering bang stopped her. The ship rocked: the shields were down. They stared at each other, dreading the next impact. When it came, it was worse than she had expected. “We can’t take this, no matter what those chatzing nicks say. If they punch through and that spore-blunge the sensors detected gets in . . .” She shuddered. They didn’t have any breathing masks on the bridge; the Panarchists had them all.

  Resolution hardened Kaniffer’s face. “We’ve still got the outer lock, right?”

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  Kaniffer waved her to silence. “Set up the image feed from the engine room to the external holojac.” He turned away and set the com to external sonic broadcast.

  “We’ll make a deal with you out there. We’ve got something you’ll want even more than the ship, and we’ll give them to you if you’ll let us go.”

  Outside, Londri stared as a wavering image began to take shape in the smoke wreathing the shuttle. Like ghosts wakened to the light of day, she saw, indistinct, the shapes of several elderly people clustered about some incomprehensible shapes, a world’s ransom in metal gleaming around them.

  Stepan gasped. His eyes widened. His mouth gaped, working as though he were trying to speak. He gestured at the image, his hand shaking, but the ship spoke first.

  “This is the Panarch of the Thousand Suns, overthrown and exiled to Gehenna by order of the Avatar. If you cease your attack we will give him and his Privy Council to you. If you do not, we will kill him and deprive you of the revenge you never thought you’d have.”

  Londri’s breath stopped. “Within your grasp the author of your woe.” Would it truly fall to her to revenge the centuries of suffering imposed upon the people of Gehenna by the Panarchy? She turned to Stepan.

  He nodded, struggling to speak. “It is. It is the Panarch. And some of his council. But they are armed.”

  She looked again, more closely, and spied angular metal objects cradled in the arms of two of the Panarchists.

  Then how can we kill them? It is a lie, like everything else they do and say.

  She stood up, heedless of any danger from the ship, feeling a measureless anger well up from a dark fortress deep within her soul. It was as though every one of her mothers, clear back to the arrival of humanity in the merciless prison of Gehenna, screamed with rage for every child lost.

  Whirling about, she seized the war horn from the herald and blew furiously into it, and, as though impelled by one mind, the men and women of the armies of Gehenna poured into the clearing, screaming furiously, flinging a hail of rocks and fire and smoke.

  ABOARD THE GROZNIY

  “The Samedi has launched a ship,” Sub-Lieutenant Wychyrski reported. “It appears to be corvette class. It skipped.”

  “Probably half the crew has mutinied and is jumping ship,” Krajno said, grim satisfaction in his voice.

  “I can’t match the signature,” Wychyrski continued.

  “Try the Dol’jharian section of the registry,” said the Aerenarch. It was the first time he had spoken.

  Ng looked his way as Wychyrski pursed her lips.

  “It’s Anaris,” the Aerenarch went on, his voice light.

  “Confirmed,” Wychyrski said, absently raking her fingers through her curls in a quick gesture. “Dol’jharian Lakku-class corvette.”

  “No threat to us,” Rom-Sanchez added.

  Several second passed, then Wychyrski looked startled. “That’s odd. Emergence at plus twenty-five light-seconds. He’s staying to watch.”

  In response to Ng’s questioning look, the Aerenarch shrugged, then smiled slightly. “When we were young, I could predict his actions fairly well—I had to. Now . . .” He turned his hands palms up.

  “Samedi skipped,” said Rom-Sanchez.

  “Tactical skip, now,” Ng commanded, and the fiveskip burped.

  The Rifter ship fought with the desperation of a cornered rat. To her surprise, Ng found that the removal of the third dimension of spatial warfare was an equalizing factor, a fact underscored sometime later by the smash of a skipmissile impact.

  The bridge canted as the ship shuddered.

  “Skipmissile hit. Aft alpha ruptor turret not reporting. Shields oscillating.”

  “Tactical skip. Now.” The fiveskip burped. “Bring us about, thirty-five degrees, skip ten light-seconds on acquisition.”

  On the main screen the Knot flickered angrily in stuttering vividness, like two curving walls of light closing in to crush the Grozniy and its opponent.

  “Knot status.”

  “Lobe closure accelerating. Margin thirty-four percent and falling.”

  We’ve got to finish them, and fast, before FF finishes us both. But the restraint imposed upon them by the need to interrogate the Rifters about the Panarch was telling on them—the Rifter, with no such inhibition, fought more violently with every pass of the deadly dance taking place in the Gehenna system, taking them farther and farther from the planet.

  Wychyrski stiffened, and began tapping frantically at her console. “I’m picking up a distress call. Ammant!”

  The handsome young sub-lieutenant on communications said tersely, “Trying to clean it up.”

  A few seconds later the bridge com crackled to life.

  “. . . SHUTTLE GROUNDED . . . ENGINES . . . ATTACK BY PLANETARY . . . OFF . . .”

  A sudden intake of breath next to her pulled Ng’s head around: the Aerenarch’s blue gaze intensified. “That is my father’s voice,” he said.

  The signal faded and vanished back into noise.

  “Then they left the shuttle on the surface?” asked Rom-Sanchez.

  “They must have overcome the crew,” the Aerenarch said.

  “Skipmissile status,” Ng snapped. “This changes things entirely.”

  “Skipmissile charge at ninety percent.” The oscillating plasma had been held too long; their first shot might not tell.

  “The second one will,” said Krajno, notifying Ng that she had spoken aloud, but she didn’t pause.

  “Navigation, bring us about, two-ninety degrees. It’s time for the kill.”

  GEHENNA

  “Over there!” screeched Neesach, gesturing wildly.
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br />   Kaniffer squinted into the setting sun, swiveled the cannon around, and tabbed the fire button, snarling with satisfaction as a catapult exploded into flaming pieces. Then he swiveled it back and swept the beam of plasma along a line of attackers, exulting as they exploded into bloody smoke.

  Outside, Londri watched, horrified despite her anger, as a finger of sun-bright flame, like a straight lightning bolt and as loud, reached out from the top of the ship. Where it touched, warriors vanished, their bodies exploding into a red fog.

  But still the attackers came on. Several squads fanned out in a self-sacrificial effort to distract the fire-thrower from the sapper teams with the rams, while the light catapults thrummed and creaked. The flame reached out with terrifying ease, tracing a path of ruin and agony among her people. Now the ever-present smoke bore the stench of burned flesh.

  Inside the shuttle, Neesach reached over Kaniffer’s shoulder, stabbing at the fire-control screen and leaving a greasy mark on it. “Shoot there!”

  “Get away from me, you logos-licker! This is no vid-game!” Kaniffer yelled as he directed the cannon toward the clot of Gehennans she’d indicated, but he caught only some stragglers.

  But the distraction had accomplished its purpose. A ram team dashed under the maximum depression of the fire-thrower, and began battering at the lock, while the rest of the assaulting force fell back. “You missed ’em, genz I’ll-take-the-cannon! Now what’re ya gonna do?” Neesach shrieked.

  Kaniffer winced, wondering when his ears would start bleeding as he elevated the cannon and picked off another catapult, then another.

  “If you’d stop yelling in my ear with that whiny Shiidra-orgasm voice of yours . . . Owww!”

  Neesach slapped his face hard and Kaniffer shoved her violently backward. She fell over a console, screaming in shrill fury, and Kaniffer laughed, then choked as a catapult bolt hurtled straight at the cannon and jammed its vertical traverse. He jerked at the control, cursing loudly on a rising note of panic as the attackers, yelling in triumph, surrounded the shuttle, battering at it in a frenzy of triumphant hate.