“Sent.”
Commander Mattu commed us, unnecessarily, to say a breathless, “We’re here,” as the ship bore down on the Tane Ikai from behind. Two Chron fighters raced in his wake.
“Ping is back,” Baden said. “But the reading is strange. It might only have travelled the first wormhole and not the Split. Maybe the same thing that happened with the comm signal.”
It was time to call upon whatever gods of luck might exist. “Rei, let’s move. We can trust Commander Mattu to adjust his speed.”
“Here we go,” Rei said. The ship bucked as Rei hit the forward thrusters, and we jumped toward the wormhole, its cone of silvery-blue plasma stretching out to grasp us. It shimmered like a waterfall in front of the viewscreen, and then the plasma burst over us and we were through.
An audible sigh of relief slid around the bridge as the Dorland stayed with us through the wormhole entrance.
Yuskeya had split the main viewscreen so that we could see both the wormhole stretching ahead of us, and the Dorland following behind. The interior walls of the wormhole swirled with the usual rainbow hues, overlaid now by the blue-white plasma of the cone. In all other respects, the skip was normal . . . except for the ship following close behind us. In theory, that should not even have been possible. But here we were, doing it.
“I think at least one of the Chron has followed the Dorland in,” Yuskeya reported. “Thought I caught a glimpse of a wing behind them.”
Rei said, “Disturbance up ahead. Assuming we’re about to merge into the Split.”
I gripped the arm of the command chair so tightly I was sure the padding would never regain its normal form. Ahead, the silver-blue plasma from the walls of the wormhole stretched in toward the centre, as if trying to meet. It formed a thin membrane across our path. I held my breath as we spun towards it.
We burst through and the half-formed vista of the Split lay in front of us. This would be the most difficult part for Rei and the pilot of the Dorland, transitioning from the usual circular skip motion of the first wormhole to the necessary half-pipe pendulum motion required by the Split. It wouldn’t be easy to overcome the momentum we’d built up. I glanced at Rei and read the tension in her neck and shoulders. I could see only part of her hands, but her fingers were pressed whitely on the console, trying to control the changeover.
“Rei, do you need help?”
But even as I asked, Jahelia left the secondary engineering console and lunged to the auxiliary pilot’s station. She didn’t say anything, just silently added her hands to the task, using her screen. Rei didn’t answer me, either. We were all knocked starwise as the ship overcame the centrifugal force and swung pendulum-like in the opposite direction. Sedmamin yelped but said nothing.
I glanced at the screen and saw the Dorland slide up the Split’s wall, swing halfway over the line demarcating the “safe” side from the dangers of the gauzy other half, and then pull back down again. I blew out a sigh, and kept my eyes on the rear-facing view. I hoped to see the Chron fighter slide off and into hazy nothingness, but that wasn’t going to happen. Of all three ships, the Chron probably had the most practice making this maneuver, or at least knew the most about it.
“A few more skips,” Rei said almost under her breath.
“Dorland is holding steady,” Yuskeya said, for those of us who weren’t free to watch the screen ourselves.
And then we rocketed out of the end of the Split into the wide black expanse of Delta Pavonis. The scattering of ships standing watch near the wormhole mouth had grown since we’d left, but I didn’t spare them more than a glance. None were in our way, that was the main thing.
“Baden, send a general warning to raise shields,” I said. “That’s all there’s time for. And everyone, hold on to something.”
The Dorland came out of the wormhole and angled sharply away from it, leaving us with a clear shot into the wormhole. I squashed a pang of uncertainty and regret at what I was about to do.
“Fire,” I told Hirin.
Chapter 27 – Lanar
What Happens Tomorrow
I HELD TIGHT to the arms of my locked-down skimchair as Luta gave the order and Hirin fired the Tane Ikai’s particle beam into the mouth of the Split. The beam energy streamed toward the wormhole, still ringed with runnels of multicoloured plasma from our recent traversal. Then the flash came, so brilliant even through the medium of the screen that I instinctively shut my eyes and turned away. The ship shuddered as if a torpedo had scored a direct hit on the hull, and the blast force spun us away.
I opened my eyes and saw the silvery bulk of a Protectorate Bahamut-class battleship looming ahead of us, but before I could do more than gasp, Rei had steadied us and pulled the Tane Ikai up. We shot over the top of the Protectorate behemoth with little room to spare. She banked and brought us around to see what had happened to the Split.
I was vaguely aware of Baden telling Luta about incoming messages, but I couldn’t look away from the Split. Like the wormhole leading to Woodroct’s Star, the Split had been transformed. The mouth burned a sullen crimson, white streaks of superheated plasma churning in a vortex at its centre. Bursts of energy spat and fractured around the edges, like lightning bolts trying to escape a thundercloud.
The Split had been destroyed. The Chron ship following the Dorland did not emerge.
Finally, I came back to myself and looked at the viewscreen as the Tane Ikai slowed and moved to take up a position near the Bahamut battleship. I realized that at least twice as many ships occupied this area than had been here when we left. And some of them were not Nearspace vessels.
“Yes, he’s right here, Fleet Commander,” I heard Luta say. “He’ll give you a full report right away. But I take full responsibility for my actions now and since we left here to enter the Split.”
“Acknowledged,” Regina’s voice came over the ship’s comm. “Admiral Mahane, please move to a secure channel and tell me what the hell just happened. And then get over here to the Tereshkova immediately.”
I caught Luta’s eye and mouthed thanks a lot as I left the bridge to head for the rear airlock. I thought I might pause at the galley to grab a cup of triple caff to take with me. I didn’t think telling Regina Holles what had happened was going to be a quick process.
I SAT FOR a seemingly interminable time around a table in the Tereshkova’s substantial meeting room. I didn’t know everyone—along with Regina and me there were other Protectorate officers, including a couple of the other Fleet Commanders who’d come to meet with Regina at FarView. There were two Relidae I recognized from Tabalo, with Cerevare Brindlepaw to help cross the language barrier. And there were holograms of two Corvids, beamed in from one of their ships nearby. And to my amazement, Mother was there, with Gusain Buig and a woman I recognized as the Chair of Schulyer Corporation. Mother came to the door and hugged me long and hard when I arrived, and I didn’t care that anyone was watching us.
It did take me a long time to tell the story of what had happened and what we’d learned.
Regina and the other Fleet Commanders agreed that we’d dealt with Mauronet and with the wormhole correctly, and Regina dispatched a couple of officers to fetch him from the Tane Ikai. Quietly, I heaved a sigh of relief that Luta would not be in trouble.
There was good news on this end, too. The Corvids had determined that the Split was, in fact, a manufactured wormhole, not a naturally-occurring one. Luta had told me after her first encounter with the Corvids that this technology existed, but I wasn’t sure I’d believed it. However, if it was true, it meant Luta’s destruction of the Split was not just a stopgap measure. No natural wormhole would spontaneously appear to take its place. Luta had given us even more breathing room to decide what to do about the Pitromae Chron.
“I am personally going to present this body of evidence concerning PrimeCorp to the Nearspace Worlds Council,” Regina said, holding up the datachip I’d given her. All the files implicating PrimeCorp were there. It was a damning collection. “I’m going t
o demand that all PrimeCorp holdings be moved into an administrative trust while charges against the corporation are filed, and a Board of Trustees appointed to oversee the business. I don’t think anyone will be able to argue against that. We’ll launch a full investigation into the PrimeCorp involvement with the Chron. The Pitromae,” she clarified, nodding to the Relidae.
“I believe ex-Chairman Sedmamin would be an invaluable resource while we carry out this investigation,” suggested one of the other Fleet Commanders.
“Good idea,” Regina said. “Let’s send a couple of officers over to the Tane Ikai to ‘invite’ ex-Chairman Sedmamin to be a guest of the Protectorate for a couple of weeks, so that he can help us out.”
I’d advise Regina later that she might want to pick up Taso for questioning as well, to add another piece to the PrimeCorp puzzle. But that could wait. “Do you really think the Pitromae will break off their incursions into Nearspace if their contact with PrimeCorp is broken?” I asked. It seemed unlikely to me, after what we’d learned. “We believe their intentions probably run deeper than whatever it was they agreed to with PrimeCorp. The sheer number of ships we saw indicate they’ve already changed their plans.”
Fleet Commander Darvi Junan sat next to Regina. His ebony hair was streaked with amber, but his pale mauve skin was surprisingly unwrinkled for his age. Junan was a quiet Vilisian with the most subtly commanding voice I’d ever heard. He shook his head. “No, Admiral, we’re not counting on that. Over the past day and half, I’m pleased to say we’ve formed a tentative alliance among the Nearspace worlds, the Corvids, and the Relidae.” The folds of skin around his eyes puckered, showing deep thought, but I caught a hint of eucalyptus scent on the air—denoting satisfaction in the Vilisian scent language. “The Corvids also have allies whom they are sure will come to the table. We will use PrimeCorp’s contact network—which we intend to uncover very quickly—to reach the Pitromae Chron and present a united front to them.”
“An attack force?” I thought of Regina’s repeated assertions that the Protectorate couldn’t undertake offensive strikes outside Nearspace without leaving the worlds sorely unprotected. Had the addition of allies made her rethink that position?
Regina shook her head. “No. A diplomatic mission. Peace talks.” She looked around the table at the assemblage of Nearspace inhabitants and aliens. “But with some teeth behind the hand extending the olive branch. And your Mother has agreed to accompany us, to explain the coming advancements in bioscavenger technology, and how it will be developed to help all of our allies.”
Mother nodded and smiled. “I’ve been working with Duntmindi and Schulyer Corporations to figure out how to do this. They’re helping set up an independent research and development branch of the Nearspace Authority to oversee the nanobioscavenger project. All the worlds will contribute, and everyone will benefit. No one corporation or group will control them or benefit disproportionately from them.”
So that’s why Mother was here. She must have been working on this plan for a while, to get the corporations on board, and then presented it to the Protectorate admin when they needed an extra incentive to take to the Chron. If we were right, and it was what the Chron wanted anyway, they wouldn’t want to be left out when all the other species had them.
Regina Holles looked around the table at the assemblage and nodded. “The Pitromae will, I hope, see that we make better friends than enemies.”
EVENTUALLY, REGINA LET me go back to the Tane Ikai. Most of the force that had gathered around the Split would soon move back to FarView Station to regroup and receive new orders, so I said I’d go back with Luta. I found Yuskeya in the galley as I made my way to the bridge. She offered me a hot drink and some food, which I gratefully accepted. The ship was quiet, in that waiting-for-the-next-thing phase that happened a lot in space travel. Or in this case, recovering-from-the-last-thing. I sat at the table and rested my head in my palms, eyes closed. The quiet was blissful after the meeting on the Tereshkova.
After what felt like a ridiculously short time, Yuskeya set a bowl of fragrant stew and a mug of steaming caff down in front of me, and sat down across the table with her own. As I dug in, I told her what had come out of the meeting on the Tereshkova. In turn, she reported that the crew of the Dorland had been safely returned to their ship, and the rescued PrimeCorp technicians had been sent to the Tereshkova. “To assist with the investigation into PrimeCorp,” she said. “I told the officer who took charge of them that they were essentially scientists and should be treated as non-hostile.”
“Good thinking,” I said. “Anti-PrimeCorp sentiment is likely to be running pretty high, but I don’t think those folks were guilty of anything more than possibly bad judgement.”
“And Commander Mattu has been given command of the Dorland, at least for the moment.”
“How did Commander Yu react?” I asked around a mouthful of stew, wondering if the Commander would be disappointed that he’d been passed over.
“He seemed relieved,” she said with a smile. “I don’t think he had his eye on Mauronet’s chair.”
“Still, I’m going to put in a word for him with the administration,” I said. “He knew something was wrong with Mauronet and said so to me the first opportunity he had. And he kept his head down there on the planet.”
“Admiral?”
I looked up to find Yuskeya studying me thoughtfully. “What?”
“Are you planning to recall me to the Cheswick now?”
“Do you want me to?”
She met my eyes, her face placid and unemotional. “I’m a Protectorate officer. I go where I’m assigned. What I want doesn’t really come into it.”
But I didn’t think she’d have asked if it didn’t matter.
I smiled. “Well, I haven’t had a chance to talk to Fleet Commander Holles and the others about this yet, but I had an idea while we were discussing the new alliance with the Corvids and the Relidae. And the effort to make peace with the Pitromae. I think we should actually put Protectorate officers on special assignment on any commercial Nearspace vessels who want them.”
Yuskeya raised her eyebrows. “Really?”
I nodded. “For a little while, anyway. It gives us more eyes around Nearspace, to watch for trouble until the relationship with the Chron is settled. And once the news about PrimeCorp and their plans breaks—which it undoubtedly will—I think it will make people feel safer.”
“So, you’re just going to leave me stationed where I am?” Despite her attempts to keep her voice neutral, I could hear the note of hope.
“Yes. I’m afraid you’re stuck with my sister for a little while longer.” I tilted the bowl to capture the last dregs of the stew.
Yuskeya sighed happily. “Well, sir, it’s a difficult job. But someone has to do it.”
I left Yuskeya so she could go and find Viss, which I was sure she’d want to do immediately. I went in search of Luta, and found her on the bridge. Rei, Baden, and Maja were there, too, so I gave them a brief run-down about what had been said on the Tereshkova.
Luta swiped a hand across her forehead. “So, I’m really off the hook for blowing up the Split? That’s good to hear.” Then her face turned serious. “Do you think they’ll be able to avert a war, then? Even with what we learned from the Relidae, I don’t feel like we understand what motivates the Chron. I mean, if they still just hate us, how do we counter that?”
I crossed to her and gave her a hug. “We just keep trying, for as long as we can. The first step will be to find out if there’s common ground. And if there is, we’ll build on that. For now, we’ll stay alert and hope for the best. To that end, I’m leaving Yuskeya with you. If that’s all right.”
Luta pretended to think it over. “Well, I guess so. She does come in handy, from time to time.”
It took me a while to find Jahelia. Finally, on a tip from Luta, I took the ladder down past the engineering level and into the cargo pod directly below it. I heard her before I saw her—the slap of ba
re feet on the cargo pod floor, the hollow ring of a zelendu staff striking floor or wall.
She’d slung her jacket across a crate and ditched her boots beside it. Her caramel-coloured hair was slicked back into a ponytail, although stray tendrils had worked their way free and now curled around her face. Sweat stains darkened the green t-shirt she wore, and the legs of her pants were rolled up to her knees.
Jahelia grinned and nodded to me when she saw me drop off the bottom of the ladder, but didn’t stop her workout. “Hello, Protectorate,” she said, apparently not out of breath even though the form was obviously taxing. Her voice echoed hollowly in the near-empty cargo pod. “They didn’t put you in detention or anything for letting your sister blow up a wormhole?”
“Nope, but I had to promise I wouldn’t let her do it again.”
“Rules are just no fun,” she said, moving through an intricate pattern of foot and staff work.
I shucked my own jacket and boots and moved within reach of the staff, inviting her to spar with a silent hand gesture. She grinned wickedly and came at me with the staff in a flurry of feints and strikes. Fortunately, an old Vilisian bunk mate of mine had taught me something about the art, and I managed to block or duck the brunt of the initial attack.
Unfortunately, she was much better at zelendu than I was, which became obvious about two minutes in to our sparring.
Jahelia stopped suddenly, leaned on the staff, and regarded me. “So, did you come here to fight, or did you come here to talk?”
I shrugged. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell with you.”
She nodded as if I’d said something insightful. “You know, I get that.” She crossed to the crate where she’d left her jacket, laid the staff on top of it, and slid down to sit, leaning back against the side. She patted the floor next to her. “Time to talk.”
Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say. I just knew I didn’t want her to get on a ship when we got back to FarView, and disappear into Nearspace. She was the first woman in a long time who left me feeling totally off-balance—but in a way I liked. I sat where she’d indicated and leaned back against the crate, too, staring out across the mostly-empty cargo pod because I didn’t know if I could think straight if I was looking at her. “Okay. Down on that planet—”
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