“Bellona, no,” Khalil said quickly. “Don’t engage. Don’t take this aboard. It wasn’t you.”
“What did Xenia do?” Bellona asked Lykke.
Lykke blinked. “You don’t remember?” For the first time, something other than hostility showed. She was surprised.
“I just finished saying that,” Sang said dryly.
“You fired the rockets,” Lykke said. “I watched you do it.”
Bellona breathed, striving for calm, while her heart slammed in her chest. “You actually saw me…fire rockets?”
Lykke licked her lips. “At the power plant. We were winning. Beating the Karassians back.” Her mouth curled down in a moue of disgust. “They are useless fighters when they’re not hiding behind the hulls of their ships. On the ground, we were in control. Then you came along.”
“Xenia came along,” Sang corrected. “Bellona doesn’t even look like Xenia.”
“You deny it was your hands holding the knives, that cut up my comrades?” Lykke demanded.
Bellona swallowed. “I remember none of this.” Sweat prickled on her back and under her arms.
Khalil’s gaze was steady. There was a silent warning in his dark eyes. She couldn’t read it, although she could guess what he was not saying. She was letting control of this meeting slip away from her. She had walked in here with the upper hand and indignation on her side. Now, she was the enemy in the room.
Fontana was watching her with pity in his eyes. He, at least, understood. So did Khalil. They had both been part of the Appurtenance Services Inc’s Ledania program. Their memories had been minced, too.
It would be smarter to shift the subject. A positive outcome was not possible here, for she had been Xenia and was guilty of the acts Lykke had witnessed. “Why did I fire rockets, if I was already winning against your resistance?” she asked, instead.
Lykke shook her head. “You only won for a while. Only, you were one, against the dozens of us holding the line, preventing you from entering the Chairman’s palace.”
“Wait,” Fontana said sharply. “You just said there were Karassian ground troops. Weren’t they fighting with her?”
Lykke glanced at him. It was the merest flicker of her eyes. “They hung back.”
“Of course they did,” Fontana said, disgust rich in his voice. “Xenia had to go it alone and when your greater numbers began to tell, she used the rockets on your local power generator, instead?”
Lykke nodded. “The reactor was our only source of power. Without it, we were doomed. You knew that. You used it against us.”
The pattern of a new settlement was the same for any world. There was always a Landing, a first village, that was more temporary camp than permanent location. Reactors were cheap and quick to assemble. They supplied power for the first hundred years or so of a world’s history, while more permanent power sources from hydro and geothermal sources were developed. As soon as a world and its cities could build self-sustaining, dispersed sources that drew power from temperature variations and solar collector windows and walls, and could manufacture the power cells to store it, they could stop draining the natural resources.
It was a common development pattern that everyone understood. Xenia had used it against the Alkeidians.
Bellona could remember none of it.
“The fallout ruined the city,” Lykke added. “It forced us to evacuate to the mountains, which are unscalable. The Chairman surrendered two days later. And now we are Felis.” Her mouth turned down again.
“I’m sorry,” Bellona said.
Khalil shook his head.
“You have to understand…it was not me who did those things to your people,” Bellona added.
Lykke’s expression didn’t change. “Yet you ask us to trust you.”
Natasa had her arms crossed, a scowl on her face. “Free-staters would be better off returning to their ship cities and staying there. We all prospered when we were just explorers looking to plant the next null-space marker.”
Alberda stirred. “I happen to like living dirtside and if we descend into the old arguments, we will be here all day. Natasa, if your family had not settled on Atticus, they would all be dead next to Ben Arany. So would you.”
“Ben wasn’t on his ship when they used the city killer on him,” Natasa said flatly.
Even Alberda could not direct the meeting, Bellona realized. There were too many hard feelings swirling the room. Most of them were built upon philosophical differences that had calcified into rich prejudices.
She sighed and got to her feet. “I think we should halt this now. No one is listening properly. Natasa, I can give you seven ghostmakers and a dozen mines. Take the offer, for it is a full half of the stash we took off Criselda. The information you gave us about the supplies was wrong.”
Natasa’s mouth opened. She didn’t speak. Her brows rose high.
“Isabelle Lykke,” Bellona added. “You have had a hard time of it lately. Considering me your enemy is a waste of time. Do your research. Look up a Karassian enterprise called Appurtenance Services Inc. Khalil will give you some resources to get you started if you ask nicely. That will point you toward who you can really blame.”
“The Eriuman news feeds said you took five hundred ghostmakers!” Natasa protested.
“I should ask a Bureau puppet for reliable sources?” Lykke added.
“He’s one of them, too,” Natasa added, glancing at Fontana.
“Ledanian?” Lykke said, shocked.
Khalil sighed.
One of Alberda’s aides hurried into the room and bent to murmur in his ear. He frowned.
Natasa nodded. “What I would like to know, Bellona Cardenas, is what gives you the right to speak on behalf of us? You’re Eriuman and you fought for the Karassians. You sleep with the Bureau. Yet you say you are fighting to preserve the free worlds. And you ask us to trust you. Why should we?”
Sang lurched to his feet, heated indignation making his jaw flex and his eyes to glitter. Natasa swiveled to confront him. “Android?” she enquired with a polite tone.
Alberda raised his hand. “A moment,” he said mildly.
Everyone looked at him. Alberda indicated the aide. “The news just broke. Erium has annexed the binary system of Ashima and pronounced it a new Eriuman territory.”
Bellona met Natasa’s eyes. “You’re running out of time. There is no one else who can do what I will do to hold the Homogeny and the Republic back. There is no one who has my resources.” She waved toward Khalil, Sang and Fontana. “My understanding of the enemy is unique. So are my skills. That is why you should trust me.”
Chapter Four
The former Karassian Homogeny Ship Alyard, Cerce Local Space
The Alyard was one of the newest ships in the Karassian fleet and the sterile, blinding white bridge reflected the greatest in Karassian technology and a complete lack of cohesive style. The Captain’s quarters had echoed the blankness when Bellona had first commandeered them. The white, the shine and the lack of comfort had bothered her at a subconscious level. Her sleep suffered.
Sang had noticed. He temporarily reverted to his original programming as a family help-meet, hijacked the military compilers in the supply suite and reprogrammed a pair of them and adapted their assembly units for domestic products. Now Bellona’s quarters were a throwback to traditional Eriuman standards of comfort. There were no screens. No hard white surfaces. Equipment did not talk back to her anymore. The multiple AIs and smart computers had been silenced. Fabric, patterns and color were the theme. Hushed, warm air and a comfortable bed. Plus, Khalil at night, when the door was closed.
It was a relief to walk back into her quarters after the meeting in Cerce City. Bellona knew she was escaping. She was helpless to stop the mental withdrawal after the heat and fury of the meeting, just as she had been incapable of not chasing after details about Xenia’s exploits during the meeting. She wasn’t quite licking her wounds, although everyone else on the Alyard—Hayes and Fontan
a and Thecla and the others—would believe she was.
She just needed time to regroup. That was all.
She waved Sang and Khalil into the suite, too, and shut the door with a feeling of relief.
Sang moved over to the mini-compiler and asked for tea for three. Instead of the three white cups the compiler would have normally produced, a small samovar appeared, the spout steaming. Three bowls with Damokles porcelain patterning and colors formed next to the samovar. Sang had been tinkering again.
Bellona inhaled the minty scent of the tea. The tension between her shoulder blades lessened.
Khalil picked up her hand. The little lines that radiated from the corners of his eyes deepened as he smiled. “You should never apologize, my love.”
“I’m sorry—” She grimaced.
“Oh you can apologize to me whenever you want,” he replied. “I like your apologies.”
“You’re talking about Xenia, though.”
Khalil’s smile faded. “You’re doing this because of what the Karassians did to you and to your friends in Ledan. This fight to preserve the free worlds…that is your apology. You must remember that and look every Isabella Lykke you come across in the eye.”
“Good advice, as far as it goes. Not remembering anything Xenia did is becoming a problem, Khal. I don’t know when I’m going to be sandbagged and can’t brace for it.”
“Ah, well.” He shrugged.
She understood. A fact was an indisputable fact. This fact could not be changed. Deal with it.
Sang put the samovar and bowls on the low table next to the couches. “You should tell everyone about Arany’s fleet withdrawing their support, before Fontana does.”
“He will only tell Hayes and the others.”
“The Ledanians?” Khalil asked, with a smile.
“And when did that become a name, by the way?”
“You’d rather be called the Apps?” Sang asked, also smiling. He held a bowl of tea out toward her. “Fontana will tell Hayes, Thecla, Vang, Retha, Aideen and Hero. Hero is intimate with nearly all the crewmembers from Abilio. The news about Natasa and her ships will travel.”
Bellona shrugged. “It is what it is. Nothing I can say will change it. We’re on our own again.”
“Natasa didn’t formally withdraw her support,” Khalil pointed out. “She just rushed off to help with the new emergency.”
“Help, how?” Bellona asked. “The annexation is complete. It was just an excuse to leave the room.” She sighed and sipped the tea. “We’re back to where we started.”
Khalil took the bowl from her fingers. “You’ve forgotten about perception and appearance.” He put the bowl on the table and drew her to him. “The known worlds think that Bellona’s Ledanians infiltrated the secure depot in Erium and stole five hundred of the most advanced ghostmakers yet developed, plus a small mountain of personal mines. Natasa’s fleet is still nominally aligned with you. She won’t make any public announcements because she’s smart and will wait to see how things play out. The known worlds still think you have seduced the old defenders of freedom to your side. That perception is no small thing. It is further along than where we began.”
She rested her hand on his chest and felt his warmth spread through her fingers. “You’re right,” she said. “Only, Alberda knows the truth and that’s unfortunate. He’s the one we really need to seduce.”
“As long as I don’t have to kiss him,” Sang said. “That beard of his is furry.”
Khalil laughed and let her go. “One fight at a time.” He returned the bowl to her hand. “Alberda is still measuring you. He won’t let anyone make up his mind until he’s good and ready. That’s why he agreed to host the meeting.”
“Then we need to find a way to make up his mind,” Bellona said. “Alberda is the key.”
“Winning over Natasa and her fleet will be part of that,” Sang added. “So will distancing yourself from anything to do with Karassia and Erium.” He handed Khalil the third bowl, as Khalil sank onto the divan.
She sat next to Khalil. “I don’t know how much plainer I can make it that I want nothing to do with either Karassia or Erium. I am living in free space.”
“In a Karassian ship,” Sang pointed out.
Bellona sighed. “One step at a time,” she repeated bleakly.
* * * * *
Menaii, Deluca Prime, Delucas System
The Cardenas family kept a small residence on Deluca Prime for the use of family members when they visited the capital, Menaii, which was not often. Since her marriage to Reynard Cardenas at fourteen, Iulia had chosen to use the Cardenas villa when she returned to Deluca to visit her family.
Now that Reynard was dead, it would be natural for her to stay in the Deluca family homebase. She had chosen, instead, to stay with Gaubert and his family in the Cardenas villa once more. She had even claimed the sleeping chamber she preferred.
Her choice had infuriated her little brother, Raine, who was now the head of the Deluca family. He was still young enough to treat her decision as an insult to him personally.
Gaubert did not care about the minor contretemps. “It’ll all get sorted out at the assembly,” he said dismissively.
Iulia knew Gaubert considered himself as the natural successor to the head chair at the clan table, taking over his elder brother’s place. Once he was acclaimed head of the Scordinii, it would be natural for Iulia to choose to align herself with him rather than to revert to her familial affiliations. Gaubert believed she felt that way, too. She did not dispute his belief.
The first clan assembly since Reynard’s death was being held on Deluca Prime, which was the real reason she had chosen the Cardenas villa. Everyone knew she was a Deluca. As a widow, she was free to return to her family, if she wanted to. Or she could remain with her husband’s family.
Staying in the Deluca homebase would give a non-returnable signal to the clan that she had made a decision, while staying in the villa could be explained away as pure habit.
Of course, she could not attend the assembly. Gaubert had left the villa early that morning for the convention hall, alone. He had been dressed in Cardenas blue, an eerie echo of Reynard’s clothing habits. Iulia presumed Gaubert’s wardrobe choice had been deliberate. Subtlety was not one of Gaubert’s stronger characteristics.
Iulia spent the day in her suite, which gave her an excuse to avoid his wife, Thora’s, company. She knew before Wait announced it that Gaubert had returned home, for her brother-in-law’s stomping and swearing could be heard across the villa.
She pinned up her hair, straightened up her plain red mourning wear and went out to the gathering room. Gaubert was standing before the fire, his fist on the mantle, scowling at the flames. Lix, his help-meet, waited to one side, with a tray holding brandy, one of Gaubert’s weaknesses.
“Oh dear, what happened?” Iulia asked, keeping her tone soft and warmly empathetic.
Gaubert’s scowl deepened. “They acclaimed me head of the Cardenas family.”
“That’s wonderful!” She pressed her hands together. “Gaubert, I’m so pleased for you.”
“But not head of the clan,” he added.
Iulia didn’t nod, even though the news was not unexpected. Instead, she moved closer. Hesitantly, as if she was compelled to comfort him. “Oh, Gaubert! They’re fools. What whelp did they put in the chair, instead of you?”
The rumors she had heard from other wives was that Peru Scordini was expected to take over the chair. He was young, yet he had been at the clan table longer than Gaubert. Peru’s family had been the first in the clan and had given the clan its name, which added weight to his claim.
“Your brother, Raine, got it,” Gaubert said bitterly.
“Raine,” Iulia repeated, more than a little bit surprised. Well, well. Raine had obviously learned how to shore up alliances and relationships since their father had died. Her wily little brother. How ironic!
She schooled her face, allowing only her surprise to show. “R
aine is weak,” she said softly.
“He didn’t sound weak at all,” Gaubert said morosely. He reached for the brandy glass and drank deeply. “He wants the navy to annex Atticus itself.”
“That’s…” Iulia shook her head. “Atticus! It’s a well-founded world. Industrial. It has nothing to offer the Republic that we don’t already have.”
“Raine says the Homogeny is measuring Laurasia. Their ships have been seen in the system lately.”
Laurasia was close to Atticus. “Since when has the Republic chosen territories based on what Karassia does?”
“Since now, I suppose,” Gaubert said.
Iulia kept her brow smooth, even though a frown wanted to form. “You’re smart to disapprove,” she told him. “It is a disturbing development, chasing after Karassia. They are becoming a nuisance. Maybe something should be done about them. Directly, I mean.”
Gaubert looked at her, startled. “You mean, attack Karassia? No one would win that war. Battles, maybe. Scraps and incidents. Full-out war, though...” He shook his head firmly and drank once more.
Iulia put the subject aside. Gaubert could be led only so far. He was too much like his brother. Instead, she asked, “Did you…was Criselda discussed?”
Gaubert looked at her sharply. “Yes,” he said. He looked down into the glass. “It was undeniably Bellona.”
“I see,” Iulia said carefully.
“The people she is with…they used the most extraordinary methods to bring the security net down and gain access. The DeJulii have passed on details to the clan. They say she took nearly a thousand bio-paired ghostmakers, hundreds of personal mines, rockets and more.” He hesitated.
“Tell me everything,” Iulia said softly.
“They killed…dozens.”
Iulia pressed her lips together. “What else?”
“They have declared your daughter an enemy of the Republic, Iulia,” Gaubert said gently.
“She is not my daughter,” Iulia said sharply. “Not anymore.”
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