Suns Eclipsed

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  * * * * *

  Governor Lin Alberda was already waiting by the time they reached the bridge.

  Hero stepped away from the screen as Bellona moved around the navigation station. “Here you are, Governor,” Hero said, waving toward Bellona.

  “I’m not late, am I?” Bellona asked, even though she knew she wasn’t.

  “I am a few minutes early,” Alberda assured her. “Your General Antonino kept me occupied.”

  Bellona glanced at Hero, hiding her alarm. “Hero can be distracting,” she admitted.

  “And charming,” Alberda added.

  Hero smiled.

  Vang settled into the pilot’s chair, well out of range of the screen and Alberda.

  “Hero is also quite lethal,” Bellona told Alberda.

  His amusement faded. “I’m sure,” he said shortly and resettled in his chair. “I suppose I should come straight to the point.”

  “As this is your meeting,” Bellona added, hiding her uneasiness.

  “I have been having some…uncomfortable conversations, lately.”

  Haven’t we all? Bellona thought. She said nothing, though, letting Alberda get to his point as promised.

  Alberda sighed. “Just exactly how long do you plan to station your ship over Cerce, Bellona?’

  “We’ve only been here five days, governor. We’re resupplying.”

  “Most ships come and go in a two-day window.”

  “You’re not talking about those ships that call Cerce home, then?”

  “I’m not,” he said firmly. “You talked to my chief stevedore, Neva Blackwood, about an extended docking license.”

  Bellona frowned. “She told you that?”

  Alberda lifted his hand to halt the line of discussion. “It’s complicated. Bellona, you can’t stay here.”

  Bellona damped down her first impulsive need to protest. “Why not, Governor?” she asked, working as much reasonableness into her tone as she could manage.

  Alberda shook his head. “You have to ask that? You and your people are notorious, Bellona. The known worlds are aware of you, after that stunt you pulled on Shavistran.”

  “You had no objections to that stunt before we parked over Cerce City,” Bellona said calmly, even though her heart was thudding loudly in her ears.

  “You’re Eriuman,” Alberda said bluntly.

  “I was Eriuman.”

  “It was your people who killed Shavistran.”

  “That does not make me personally responsible.”

  Alberda let out a deep breath. “They used that city killer to wipe out Ben Arany and his people, Bellona. Ben was a friend of mine.”

  “I’m sorry,” Bellona said automatically, her mind racing. “Lin, are you trying to avoid saying you don’t want us over Cerce because you think the Eriumans will use the city killer to get me?”

  Alberda winced. Then he sighed. “You always say you want to halt the Karassian and Eriuman aggression. By lingering here, you’re inviting it. You did not leave many friends behind when you left Cardenas. You left no friends behind on Kachmar.”

  “I brought them all with me, Governor,” Bellona said stiffly.

  “My point remains. You have publicly declared yourself opposed to the Homogeny and the Republic. Erium has named you an official enemy. The more you oppose them, the harder they’ll fight back.” He gave her a stiff smile. “I hope all your friends you brought with you are as lethal as your General Antonino there, Bellona. You’re going to need them. Anyone else standing near you will get caught in the fallout.”

  “I thought you were a friend, Lin.”

  “I can’t afford to be friends with you. I have a world to protect.” He grimaced again. “I’m sorry.”

  “We can protect you, Governor.”

  “With what? That Karassian barge you stole? You can’t stop a city killer.” He shook his head. “No, Bellona. I must insist you leave Cerce.”

  Bellona sighed. “I have crew who are away on other planets. I must wait for them to return.”

  “Your friends will enjoy no success on those other worlds,” Alberda said. “You should tell them to return now and not waste their time.”

  Bellona’s belly clamped. “The uncomfortable conversations you’ve been having…” she breathed.

  Alberda nodded. “I’m sorry, Bellona. I admire your cause. I believe in it. I hate that we all live in fear of Karassian or Eriuman ships showing up on our doorstep with their guns primed. I hate that no one tries to stop them. Only, there’s a reason no one tries.”

  “Because no one has the power to stop them,” Bellona said bitterly.

  “Not even you, no matter how much you want to,” Alberda added gently.

  Bellona nodded. “One day, that will change, Lin.”

  “On that day, if it comes, I will roll out the red carpet. That is not today.” He disconnected.

  The screen dissolved. Silence filled the bridge, broken only by the tick and flutter of computers.

  “You didn’t need me,” Vang said. “I don’t think he even tried to pull his punches.”

  Bellona grimaced. Vang was right. She looked at Hero. “General Antonino?”

  Hero shrugged. “I could have called myself your lieutenant, only lieutenants specialize.” She grinned mischievously. “Generals are into everything.”

  “Another word for that is promiscuous,” Vang said.

  “I think of it as being multi-talented,” Hero said stoutly.

  Bellona shook her head. “Whatever title you give yourself, it’s not going to matter a damn if no one wants us near them.”

  Vang got to his feet. “What are you going to do?”

  “You two are going to get on the communications bands and call back the others. Tell them to drop everything and grab the fastest express bus back to Cerce. Then, we’ll find another hole in nomansland and…”

  She was aware that she had stopped talking mid-sentence. It was a secondary thought. Ideas were slamming through her, fragments of memories and more, stirred up by Alberda and the conversations she had just had with Aideen and Vang.

  She blinked and saw that Hero and Vang were both watching her with a degree of wariness.

  “What?” Hero demanded.

  Bellona stirred, energy surging through her, making her restless. “Vang, what would you say is the single most telling difference between the Eriumans and the Karassians?”

  Vang looked startled, then thoughtful. “How they use their AIs, I suppose.”

  Hero laughed and tugged at a lock of his white-blonde thatch of hair, then picked up her own sable locks. “Hello.”

  Vang scowled at her. “Appearance is nothing,” he said shortly. “The Eriumans are naturally bred DNA without enhancements. They use AIs in all sorts of ways to enhance their lives, instead. Not obviously, though. Not directly. They want natural perfection—an outcome of discipline and morals and productivity…and breeding. They consider themselves superior to everyone, including the Karassians, who can’t reach perfection without adjustments. Their AIs look like perfectly disciplined people.”

  “Androids,” Hero said, her flirtatious air evaporating. Her eyes narrowed as she followed Vang’s speech.

  “Androids,” Vang agreed. “From the simplest robot to AI-driven tools, to self-aware entities like Sang. A human figure moving about the room doesn’t mar the ambience.” He shrugged.

  Hero laughed. “Sang will love that.”

  “Karassians don’t use androids,” Bellona said, nudging Vang.

  He shook his head. “They don’t trust AIs that look too human, because androids are smarter and faster than even the most enhanced human, which is anathematic to Karassians, who think of themselves as the best and spend their lives outdoing themselves. Look at us, at Ledan. They could only stand the idea of apps—androids—fighting on their behalf so long as they were locked safely away in the meantime. They even called them—us—apps, not androids, because it was easier to think of us that way.”

 
“So, Eriumans are disciplined and Karassians live to excess,” Bellona summarized.

  “That’s a huge simplification,” Vang said. “We’re human in the end. Individuals are unique by definition. That’s why Aideen prefers numbers.”

  Hero squeezed her hands together. “I prefer people. You got an idea from all that, boss?”

  Bellona nodded. “I’m going to use Karassian excesses against them. In particular, one of their less endearing habits.”

  Vang raised a brow, waiting.

  “I’m going to use their inability to clean up after themselves,” she told them.

  Chapter Six

  Cardenas (Findlay IV), Findlay System, Eriuman Republic

  What she was doing was questionable. Perhaps even illegal. Iulia had never been tempted to do it before. Therefore, she had never had reason to acquaint herself with Eriuman military security laws surrounding the subject. She carefully didn’t ask for clarification now, from Wait or Riz or even Gaubert, before setting up a small screen and running the security footage from the Criselda armaments depot.

  That had been four days ago. After multiple repeats, Iulia asked Wait to compile the various angles into a time-related whole. The resulting monologue was choppy yet coherent. While she dealt with homebase administrative matters in her boudoir office, she had let the video run on a loop, repeating itself.

  Her attention was always snagged by the same fragments, causing her to pause what she was doing and look up at the screen to watch them play out. Only one of the fragments focused completely upon Bellona, while the rest were wide-angled footage with small figures crossing the range of the camera lens. In the focused section, the woman who had been her daughter was carrying a ghostmaker as she ran with two others. One of those two was Sang, the family asset, except it was barely recognizable. It had taken on male characteristics since Iulia had seen it last.

  The possible reasons why Bellona might have ordered it to do that were few and all of them troubling. All of them pointed to the vast distance Bellona had travelled since leaving home.

  Iulia heard the sound of water splashing, coming from the family room. Someone was using the bathing pool. It wouldn’t be Thora. She preferred to sleep on hot afternoons.

  Iulia redraped her mantle, told Wait to pause the play-back and went through to the family room, her sandals slapping the polished stone floor. As she had suspected, it was Gaubert in the pool. He rested in one corner with his arms spread and his head back. He had submersed himself first and his hair and flesh were damp.

  He lifted his head as Iulia entered. “Be a sweet and pass me my drink?”

  Iulia went back to the sideboard, where a single glass sat, sweating moisture. The sideboard was against the one solid wall of the room. Like the gathering room on the other side of the public wing, the family room used forcefields for walls, filling in the gaps between the massive pillars. The invisible fields gave the family a grand view of the low mountain ranges around the city. At the moment, the fields were off, letting in natural air. She could hear insects buzzing and clicking in the gardens, beyond. It was a lazy sound unique to late summer afternoons in the city.

  Iulia picked up the glass and nodded at Lix, Gaubert’s help-meet, which stood next to the sideboard. Hiding her annoyance at being asked to act as help-meet, she carried the glass to Gaubert, who took it with a murmured thank you.

  Then she slid off her sandals, stepped down to the top step of the pool and paused as the finger-deep water played over her feet. The coolness drew her attention to how warm it was in the room. She gathered the hem of her dress up out of the way and sat on the edge of the pool, then rested her feet on the second step. The water lapped around the top of her calves.

  “Are you sick of watching that security feed yet?” Gaubert asked. He put the glass aside, rested his head back and closed his eyes.

  “You knew what I was doing?” she asked, startled.

  “You disappeared for three days. I made it a point to find out.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “I know why you’re doing it.” He opened one eye. “I’m a parent, too.”

  “I no longer have a daughter,” she reminded him.

  He opened the other eye to consider her. “You’re still wearing red,” he pointed out.

  “Yes.” She didn’t try to make the flat word pretty.

  “You really hate her that much for what she did to Reynard? Your own daughter?”

  Iulia rearranged the folds of the gauzy red dress over her lap to stop it trailing in the water. “Who was it you spoke to in the Homogeny? Who gave you the city killer?”

  Gaubert didn’t answer straight away. His gaze sharpened. “I didn’t think it was possible for a mother to reject a child, as you are.”

  “Did you meet them on Antini?”

  He sat up, shedding fat droplets. “No one gave Erium the city killer. We took it from the Karassians.”

  “With their cooperation, I’m sure,” Iulia added. “I don’t care about the city killer, anyway. I want—”

  “You don’t?”

  She shrugged. “What can be stolen can be stolen again. Then deconstructed. Then copied. Now, the Karassians won’t dare use the thing because it could be used against them and we’re back to the stalemate. That is my point, Gaubert.”

  He frowned. “The stalemate?”

  “You worked with the Karassians to acquire the city killer. Don’t look at me that way and don’t protest. That story about stealing the thing is a convenient face-saver. Just don’t ask me to believe it. I lived with Reynard for forty years and there were many such conveniences presented to me. I know what they look like.”

  Gaubert leaned back and closed his eyes. “Perhaps you should get to your point.”

  “I am at my point. You have a unique advantage over every other clan head, Gaubert. You have the ear of Karassia. Peru cannot claim that. Neither can Raine.”

  “Karassia does not listen to me,” he said distantly. “They provided information. Once. That is all.”

  “They will listen, when you propose a working partnership.”

  He didn’t just open a single eye this time. He sat up, making the water surge and slap against the sides of the pool and her lower legs. “A partnership? With Karassia? You are mad.”

  “Maybe. You need a platform, something to give you an advantage over Peru and Raine, yes?”

  Gaubert licked his lips. “Why would I—why would anyone—want to work with the Karassians? We join with them and the war is over. It would be the political equivalent of admitting defeat.”

  “Would the war really be over, though?” she asked.

  “A war requires an enemy. If we’re working with the Karassians, there would be no enemy left.”

  “That’s not entirely true.”

  Gaubert rested his elbows on his bony knees and linked his hands together. It was something Reynard used to do. Was he trying to look more like his older brother?

  “You’re really so angry with your daughter you would declare war upon her?” he asked.

  “She will do that.” Iulia echoed Gaubert’s pose. She folded her arms and leaned on her knees. It was a useful echo, for it displayed her décolletage perfectly.

  On cue, his gaze flicked toward her breasts, then bounced back up to her face. He swallowed. “Bellona is having a tantrum. That’s all. She’ll grow bored with her new project in a few months and come home again.”

  Iulia shook her head. “You’re wrong. I’ve been studying the footage, Gaubert. She didn’t steal nearly as many ghostmakers as the assembly would like us to believe. She did get through a high security perimeter and take what she wanted. She has people who look to her. She has a mission. We gave her all the motivation she needs to fight for it. The Assembly would like to believe she is just an expensive nuisance. She will become more than that. When she does, you will look prophetic in your insistence upon an accord with Karassia.”

  Gaubert shook his head. “You can’t possi
bly know that.”

  “I know Bellona.” She smiled, to soften the statement. “You must sow the seeds now, Gaubert. Talk to the other heads about your relationship with Karassia and how that could be used to Eriuman advantage. Then, when Bellona and her little group overshadow the Homogeny threat, you will be there to offer the solution.”

  “To work with Karassia to wipe out Bellona? You really want revenge that much you would kill your own daughter?”

  Iulia took the time to draw in a breath and calm herself. “By the time a working arrangement is needed with Karassia, it won’t be just my daughter the Republic is facing. It will be the power of the free worlds working together.”

  Gaubert snorted. “That will never happen.”

  His tone said she had pushed too far. Iulia shrugged, retreating a little way. “Perhaps. Who am I to know anything? What could it hurt to put down the groundwork, though? To talk to some people? If I am right, you will be perfectly positioned.”

  Gaubert’s knee rose and fell, as he thought it through. “I suppose there would be no harm in talking.”

  “You have little to lose,” she said in agreement. “And so much you could gain from being the only Scordinii with vision.”

  Gaubert settled back against the tiles once more. “Tonight, perhaps. Or tomorrow, if it is cooler. Get me a refill, would you, Iulia? This damn heat is draining all my energy.”

  Iulia rose to her feet and stepped out of the pool, then went to get his requested glass of punch, not nearly as irked about the help-meet task as she had been before.

  * * * * *

  The former Karassian Homogeny Ship Alyard, Null-Space

  Amilcare rarely came onto the bridge itself. He fidgeted and shifted from foot to foot, looking around the big, sterile area, as Zeni complained, his deeply lined face and protruding eyes troubled. From years of mining the minerals from beneath Abilio, his vision had deteriorated and been corrected numerous times and now his eyes were no longer Eriuman black, but a washed out brown.

  Yet he was one of the more capable lieutenants to emerge from beneath Abilio, among the nearly forty recruits who had joined Bellona’s cause. They had been scraping a living from the mineral mine when she and Sang had first arrived there.