“Anywhere. A random location. As random and unexpected as you can. Put us in the middle of nowhere. Hero, get on the scanners. Where are those ships?”
Even though no one had assigned posts on the bridge, the eighteen or so people who flowed into the room all settled behind stations and at consoles without bickering or chaos and started working.
Hero bent over the surveillance table. “Three-quarters of a light year from here. Two of them,” she said. “Eriuman and Karassian…” She straightened, shocked, looking at Bellona.
Everyone else paused to look at her, too.
“I don’t have answers yet,” Bellona told them. “We can’t win against a carrier, not with a Karassian destroyer ready to pounce, too. No one could. We’re jumping out of here as soon as we’ve overcome inertia and Aideen has the null engines ready.”
“Forty-three seconds,” Aideen said.
“How did they even know we were here?” Amilcare demanded as he tapped the dashboard in front of him with a heavy hand.
“There are dozens of ways they could have found us if they were looking for us,” Bellona told him. “I’m more interested in knowing why they suddenly decided to look for us.”
“They’ll be in ether range in twenty seconds,” someone called.
“I imagine we’ll have some answers then,” Bellona said. She made herself sit in the oversized, overstuffed captain’s chair, even though she disliked the way she sank into it.
“In range,” the same person called out. “…and broadcasting,” they added.
“Let everyone see it,” Bellona said. “One-way only. We play dead until the last moment.”
The big central screen came to life.
The admiral on the screen was a woman and Bellona recognized her face. “That’s Admiral Lucretia Eucleides.”
Eucleides didn’t respond, because she couldn’t see or hear Bellona. Instead, she spoke calmly.
“This is to whoever is listening on the Aarens. I speak on behalf of the Alliance. You are in violation of Alliance space. Prepare to be boarded.”
Bellona sucked in a breath.
“What the hell is the Alliance?” Hero said.
“The Homogeny and the Republic are working together,” Aideen said.
Hero scowled at her. “Why would they even consider working together?”
Bellona swallowed. “It can’t be official. We would have heard the proclamation on thousands of feeds.”
Amilcare leaned on his station, to twist to look at her. “So the admiral and whoever the fuck is on the Karassian destroyer just woke up one morning and said ‘I know, I’ll hunt down Xenia and her people today and I’ll ask my good old enemy the Karassians to help me, because they’ll trip over themselves to do that?’”
“How long until they’re in firing range?” Bellona asked.
“Ten seconds.”
“Aideen?” Bellona said.
“Thirteen.”
“We’re going to take a hit or two before we can jump,” Bellona warned them. “Alert the rest of the ship…although I think everyone who didn’t go on the Alyard is already here.”
“Just about,” Hayes said. He was perched on the second’s stool at the communications console, next to Zeni, who was running the console with a competent air. Hayes made Zeni look even more delicate than usual. “I am telling everyone,” Hayes added.
“Five seconds.”
“Six seconds,” Aideen added immediately.
Bellona realized she was pushing herself deeper into the chair, leaning away from the coming impact.
The center screen had gone to black. On Bellona’s arm-console, Eucleides reappeared. This time, the screen split. The captain of the Karassian ship was a stranger to Bellona. The man standing behind his shoulder wasn’t.
“Woodrow,” she breathed.
Eucleides repeated her warning. The Karassian captain added at the end of it, “We will fire immediately if you do not signal you are standing down.”
“They know who is here,” Bellona said to herself, for everyone else was busy. “They came for me. Who sent them, though?”
“Incoming!”
She reared back, gripping the edges of the chair.
There was no explosive sound. The point of impact was somewhere out of hearing range. She could feel the floor rumbling beneath the chair. Screens and consoles flickered.
“Go as soon as you can, Aideen!” Bellona cried.
“We’re not moving fast enough yet,” Aideen replied.
“Sang!”
“The inertia is considerable, with a vessel this size,” he said, as calm as Aideen. “We are also inside a gravity well that we must overcome.”
“Shoot garbage out the airlock if that will help,” Bellona told him. “Just get us moving! Damage report, anyone!”
“Someone on the landing deck says the fighters slid into one corner,” Zeni said. “I don’t think there’s anyone anywhere else to report.”
Another hit. This time, Bellona could hear the bone-deep boom.
She gritted her teeth together. There was nothing to do but wait it out.
“Jumping!” Aideen called, as the ship lurched and shivered.
The images of Eucleides and the Karassian captain dissolved. They were replaced by a generic star field she did not know. Bellona looked up. “Where are we?”
“Nowhere, as requested,” Aideen said.
Sang sat back, blowing out a breath.
“Sang, are we still moving?” Bellona asked.
He bent to look at the console. “Yes. Three meters a second.”
“Keep us moving,” she told him. “Demosthenes will never stop, ever again. Bring it down to just above jumping speed, so we’re always ready.”
“Is that wise?” Aideen asked. “If we keep moving, we’ll starting running into things.”
“In about a hundred and fifty years, maybe,” Bellona replied. “A gradual course correction will take care of that, too. Sang, you and Aideen work with the navigation AI to set up algorithms that will keep Demos moving through nothing. And Sang…”
“Yes?”
“You’ll have to let the Alyard know where we are. Make sure that message is sealed in a bomb-proof communications bullet. Now we’re where no one can trip over us, I’d like to keep it that way for a while.”
She got to her feet. “Everyone else, fan out over the Demos. Check for damage, fix what you can and clean up. Any questions, check with Sang or table it for later. All clear?”
Silence.
Bellona nodded. “I’ll be in my quarters.”
Chapter Seventeen
Demosthenes, nomansland.
Sang took only a few steps into the room before coming to an uncertain halt. He looked around warily.
“You insisted on speaking to me,” Bellona reminded him.
“I wanted to let you know we found the locator beacon and disabled it. It would have turned on when the reactor was activated, telling the Karassians the Aarens was active once more. It’s dead now.”
“A small prevention, applied too late to help. Anything else?”
“Fontana and Thecla have returned. Connie is brooding in her corner of the landing deck once more. They spent five hours searching in Cerce City. The popular bars remember seeing Khalil there at least once, yet there’s no trace of him.”
Bellona sighed. “Thank you. That’s it?”
“No.” Sang girded himself. “I think it’s time you left this suite.”
Bellona laughed. “Why?”
Sang’s lips thin for a moment. “You’ve been hiding in here for nearly eighteen hours and things are… You’re needed. At the very least, you should talk to Retha.”
She flinched. “And say what? ‘I’m sorry Vang is dead. I was a fool.’ You think that will make Retha feel better?”
“I think you would be surprised at the difference it will make,” Sang said quietly.
She shook her head. “No. I’m not ready.”
Sang
shifted on his feet, frowning.
“What?” she demanded.
“You don’t get to choose when you’re ready or not,” Sang said. “That’s not how this works.”
“Excuse me?”
Sang took another step farther into the room. “You’re their leader. It’s not up to you to decide whether they need you or not.”
“Their leader?” She lurched to her feet. “I’m the one who got Vang killed. I led them right into the arms of the Homogeny and the Republic. I can’t get a single free world to do more than laugh at me. Khalil is missing. Connie is panicked. The bridge forge is possibly the worst idea I’ve ever had, unless we use it to toss Karassians through. And on top of all of that, the Republic and the Homogeny have put aside hundreds of years of hostility and are working together just because of me.” She wrapped her arms around her middle, chilled. “Those people out there don’t need me. I’m the last person they need.”
Sang nodded. “Have you asked yourself yet why the Republic and the Homogeny are coming after you?”
Bellona sighed. “What does it matter? They can outshoot me, out run me and squish me under their heels whenever they want. I was a fool for ever thinking that this could work, Sang.”
He took another step. He was in the middle of the room now. “I’m not Khalil,” he said. “He would say this in a way that makes sense, that would convince you of it and make you want to get out there and fight. All I can do is report.” He gave a tiny shrug. “You think you’re ineffective, that what you’re trying to do is worthless. I say you’re wrong.”
Bellona gave a tiny laugh. “That’s not a report, Sang. That’s an opinion. One without substance.”
“Do you remember watching the fishermen hunt for giant horse cuttles in the Arden Sea?”
Bellona stared at him. “What has that got to do with—”
Sang held up his hand. “I know. This is not poetry. It is not one of Khalil’s rousing speeches. Humor me. Do you remember how they catch the horse cuttles?”
Bellona sighed. “Depth charges dropped over the side. The deeper the better, because the biggest fish are very deep. They’re so big, some of them, that the charges would just disorient them and piss them off.”
“Then they’d rise to the surface and try to take on the boat and that’s when the hunters take over, so they can claim their trophy,” Sang finished. “Only, do you remember how long it took once the charges were dropped? That one excursion, when you were ten. You got bored.”
“I think I fell asleep,” she admitted, recalling the sparkling sea, the heat, the rocking motion of the boat and the sharp, rotting smell that wafted off the deck plates no matter where she stood.
“You said it just then: The deeper the better. A deep charge, a strong charge, brought up the biggest horse cuttles…and it took time for that to happen.”
Bellona shook her head. “I’m not following, Sang.”
“Nearly a year ago you dropped depth charges. You thought they were just little crackers. A shot across the bow. Yet the cuttles have surfaced and are fighting back and they are strong.”
Bellona gripped her sides, her heart giving a little thud in reaction.
Sang held out his hand to one side. “In two hundred years of war, neither the Homogeny nor the Republic have ever considered working together for a common aim. It was unthinkable. Then Ben Arany came along with his little fleet of insurgents. That worried them enough they shuffled next to each other to take him down, while pretending they were still enemies.”
“The city killer,” Bellona said. “Karassian technology, used by the Republic.”
“Apparently stolen while Karassia looked the other way,” Sang added. “Then you made a public declaration. A formal announcement that you would work to halt their aggressions and maintain peace and freedom for the free states.” He shook his head. “You scared them, Bellona. The thing they fear the most is an enemy greater than them. If the free worlds were ever to put aside their independence and work together, they would become an enemy that could defeat them. That’s what you told them you were going to do.”
Bellona stared at him, her heart starting to hurt, now. “They got together because of me.”
Sang nodded. “Publicly, this time, because they fear your threat that much. Look at the degree of the reaction, Bellona. Remember the resources both militaries have. They would have researched and analyzed and concluded that your threat, as simple and useless as it looks like on the surface, is dangerous.”
Bellona pressed her lips together, resisting the impulse to dismiss the idea. “The stronger the reaction, the great the depth charge,” she said, flipping the theory around.
Sang nodded. “Two big systems like the Republic and the Homogeny can only change directions slowly. That’s why it took a year for even this unofficial cooperative to emerge. Alliances and agreements and lobbying takes time.”
“It’s still only a few captains and admirals working together,” Bellona pointed out.
“It won’t stay that way,” Sang said with complete assurance. “The military officials are more agile than the politicians. They can afford to take greater risks…and they have. They’ll ask forgiveness of the united assemblies, then a formal alliance will be voted in because even the politicians are scared of what you represent.”
“A threat,” she repeated.
“A huge threat, that must be stomped on immediately and quickly, before your ideas take hold among the free worlds and become unstoppable.”
Bellona considered it. “The bigger the charge, the greater the reaction.”
Sang nodded. “Things are moving. That is why you can’t give up, now. There’s enough speed for you to jump. Then Vang won’t have died for nothing.”
Bellona let out a heavy sigh. “Okay.”
Sang looked startled. “Okay?”
Bellona gave him as good as smile as she could muster. “You’re not Khalil, yet you’re effective in your own way. I’m convinced. I’ll stop pouting now.”
Sang grew very still, his gaze turning inward.
“Sang?”
He held up his hand for silence.
She waited.
Sang’s gaze refocused on her. “I just received a sealed communication. From your mother.”
Bellona shook off her surprise. “What does she want?”
“Me.”
Bellona laughed. “You?”
“She cited the family economic constitution and says I am required to return to take up my prescribed post.”
Bellona considered that, her mind racing with a clarity that had been missing until Sang had lectured her. “You should go,” she said slowly.
“No!” he said stoutly. “I turned my back on the family just as you did.”
“You didn’t declare it publicly, the way I did,” Bellona told him. “I think it’s time you did.”
Chapter Eighteen
Pleasure Dome, Antini III, Free Space.
It was snowing heavily on Antini, to the point where visitors to the pleasure dome were brought in from their vessels by flitters and air cars, to land on one of two garage balconies built into the curve of the dome, high up out of reach of the climbing snow.
From behind the dome wall, the building snow at the lower levels obscured any view, while the cafes and restaurants that hugged the wall at the upper levels enjoyed better business than usual as people sipped alcohol and drug-laced hot beverages and watched the snow just on the other side of the dome spit and flurry and change direction without warning. The one thing the snow did not do was stop.
Sang found the Cardenas group at one of the smaller eateries. They took up three tables. Iulia was at the center one, of course.
He knew everyone who sat at the tables and catalogued an interesting anomaly. Missing from the family group were the male humans. Gaubert was not there. Neither was Markjohn, or his oldest son, who was already an adult.
Thora sat next to Iulia, a fur wrapped firmly around her. She looked un
comfortable, her glaze flitting around the area uneasily, as if she was trying to avoid letting it linger on any brazen view. As the restaurant was separated from the rest of the dome only by low bushes in tubs, the sexual activities in the dome could be observed from any table. The view was a feature of the restaurant advertised on every placard throughout the dome.
On the other two tables were the family androids, including Wait and Riz.
Iulia was watching a group clustered on a fungus bed, on the other side of the rivulet. She seemed unmoved by their gymnastics. When she saw Sang, she rose to her feet. “Finally,” she said shortly.
Thora’s mouth opened. She looked up at Sang, then down, then up again. “You’re…you’ve changed!” she said, horrified.
The family androids got up and stood waiting for a direction, even Wait, who had done more to run Reynard’s empire than anyone else in the family. Their expressions were placid.
“You’re late,” Iulia said. “No matter. We can adjust any chronometric errors back at the homebase. You’re here.”
“I am here, Iulia,” Sang said. “Although I am not here to return to Cardenas with you.”
Iulia’s lips parted. Then she got herself under control. Her eyes narrowed. “You are required to return.”
Sang smiled. “I work with Bellona now. You have no jurisdiction over me, anymore.”
“You are a family asset,” Iulia snapped. “You will return, or I will make you return.”
“You can try,” Sang said, as calmly as he could, even though his heart was squeezing and writhing. “Bellona removed the governor implant a month after Max died. I am as free as you to make up my own mind now.”
Iulia’s jaw flexed.
Sang spread his hands in a peaceful motion. “Let us not pretend, Iulia. You want me back only to syphon from me details about Bellona, to give to the military so they can take her down. There is no other reason why your summons arrives so long after I left. The Republic Navy just failed to capture her, so they sent you in.”
Anger made her eyes glitter. Iulia held onto it with disciplined honed from years of subsuming her needs to support Reynard’s, instead. “You are being insolent. You will return with me and your place in the family.”
Suns Eclipsed Page 18
