Crown Of Fire (21 page)

Burkenhamn saluted the Federate governor, then looked aside.

And there
she
sat: Firebird Angelo Caldwell, white medical coveralls out the flame in her hair. Her face looked flushed.

There they were together, her daughter's gene-father and the mother of the only children he ever would acknowledge—his prophesied heirs, miraculously safe at sanctuary.

Burkenhamn saw Firebird, too. Smiling, he strode toward her mobility chair as Talumah palmed his dart pistol. Terza felt Talumah gloating, taking mental aim at Caldwell, measuring his range. Burkenhamn picked up speed as he crossed the room.

"Marshal." The Angelo woman smiled warmly. "We needed to talk with you about—" Welcome faded from her face. It would have been easy to let Burkenhamn reach her. Easy, and right—

From behind her inmost shields, Terza brought up the cry, "Stop him!" Against common sense, against all sense of loyalty, she leveled her blazer at Talumah's back and kept one eye on Burkenhamn. "Caldwell!" she forced out the words. "He's under command to kill her!"

Burkenhamn lunged. Firebird flung herself off the mobility chair. A cleft-chinned woman Sentinel sprang toward Burkenhamn. In the same instant, Talumah pivoted.

Terza shot him in the chest.

Firebird landed hard and rolled over with impressive speed for someone so recently and severely wounded.
Pain blocks,
Terza guessed,
and regen therapy
—

The Sentinel woman landed a flying kick on Burkenhamn's left hip, knocking him aside. She hit the floor in a tuck, somersaulted, then lashed out again from a crouch. Caldwell and another Sentinel closed in on the big Netaian, raising their hands to use voice-command. Two guards in mismatched Federate uniforms caught Burkenhamn's arms.

Other men and women scattered. Terza opened both palms and extended her arms. Her hands trembled with self-reproach. Her blazer hit the soft tile, bounced once, then lay still. She fixed her stare on Brennen Caldwell's eerily blue eyes, holding it there even when someone seized her right shoulder from behind and pressed something hard against the base of her skull. "Don't move," said a woman's voice. Other hands fumbled at her belt, then patted her down. Someone pulled the lavaliere pickup over her head.

She drew a deep breath, smelling charred fabric and flesh. Talumah's flesh.

I'm sorry, Father. There are things even I have to do. Good-bye.

A Sentinel knelt beside Firebird, supporting the small woman in a sitting position. The female guard who'd intercepted Burkenhamn stood over them, brandishing a blazer. The room quieted. Controllers and com techs returned to their stools and sat motionless. Burkenhamn blinked as his mismatched guards helped him stand up.

Caldwell stepped in front of his bond mate, defensive fury in his eyes. Did he realize how narrowly she'd just escaped assassination . . . again? Finely muscled, he moved well, and the savor of his presence had an uncanny peace. When he stopped two meters away, she dropped her shields in submissive greeting.

His dark eyebrows arched. She felt him focus the remnants of his epsilon shield. She waited, passive but tingling in every nerve, for a thrust of mind-access.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

The voice, too, surprised her. It wasn't as deep as she remembered from Polar's interrogation files. Did Caldwell sense nothing? Her desire, her intentions, her... the state of her body?

Three med assistants in yellow tunics dashed through the door, pulling a medical litter. One knelt beside Ard Talumah, touched a hand to his chest wound, then shook his head at Occupation Governor Danton, who hung back between two big-muscled Carolinians.

Other meds helped Firebird back into her reclined mobility chair, where she kept her eyes trained on her bond mate.

"Who are you?" Caldwell repeated. "Who is he? Why did you kill him?"

She wondered what Juddis Adiyn saw at this moment on the shebiyl, back on Three Zed. Surely a dozen possible futures snaked off from this nexus. Her voice shook when she answered, "My name is Terza Shi-rak."

His eyes widened.

"I am asking . . . requesting asylum. I believe your people hoped to take a prisoner, just as mine did. Guarantee my safety, and my memories are at your disposal." Was she really saying this?

He stared, and still she felt no probe. Maybe he thought she was insane, or illogical, or hurried over the brink of competence.

"Asylum?" came a feminine voice from behind him.

Caldwell stepped aside, glancing down.

That had been Firebird's voice. Her bodyguard remained close, holding that blazer.

The weapon Terza couldn't see pressed hard at the base of her neck. Still shieldless, she felt Firebird's curiosity and gratitude mingled with suspicion. Neither she nor Caldwell accepted Terza's plea . . . yet. Terza would have scorned them if they had so quickly.

Terza indicated Talumah with a flick of her eyes. One of the meds unfurled a body bag over him. "His name is Ard Talumah," she said. "I killed him because he would'vc killed me, once he understood that I mean to defect. Believe that or not, as you will. But I am not acting under orders now. I am breaking them."

Firebird pursed her lips and raised her chin.

"He deserved to die," Terza said softly, pitching her voice so that only Firebird and Caldwell would hear clearly. "He mind-altered Bur-kenhamn to kill you. He also murdered your nieces. The Angelo girls."

Firebird's eyes narrowed as if she remembered something. "Talumah," she muttered. "Cassia Talumah's brother?"

"The same." Cassia, who died when this pair escaped Three Zed, must have bragged about Ard's attack. "I have something else to tell you." She focused on Caldwell again. "It will be better if you hear it alone."

He barely shook his head, perhaps distracted by a second burst of unshielded realization from his bond mate. Carradee gone, then Phoena, and now Carradee's heiresses—

"You have every reason to suspect treachery," Terza said softly. "I am almost certainly watch-linked. I'm also sure my alpha matrix was manipulated. And one other thing has been done to me. To my body. I am—I was—a genetics technician. The plan was to lure you in."

To Terza's satisfaction, Firebird glanced directly at Terza's belly. Again, comprehension burst out of her. Naturally, the woman would understand first. She was a mother and a bond mate. She stretched out one hand toward Caldwell.

He leaned down, letting her whisper into his ear. His stare whipped toward Firebird, then back to Terza in horror and . . . was that hope?

I want the child to live,
she projected, using minimal carrier strength. There were other Sentinels present.
That's why I'm defecting. I'll tell you everything I know or have been led to believe. But then you must find a way to see that I can't harm you, or else the tragedy will have only begun. They want you.

The governor stepped forward, sandy hair dangling across his eyebrows. "Do you know this woman, General Caldwell?"

"No." He tilted his head back, exhaling slowly, his every movement caution. "But I know her family."

"Not—" the governor began.

Caldwell nodded curtly.

Again, Terza felt faintly nauseous.

One of Burkenhamn's guards held the lavaliere pickup. He pointed it back at her, and she spotted her own injector in his other hand. "Would you submit to blocking drugs, Terza Shirak?"

She bit her lip. Blocking drugs might break the watch-link, but they could also damage her child's neural system. She held her breath, wondering if Caldwell would let that fetus be mentally crippled, to render Terza harmless. If so, he was more like his
shuhr
than she'd thought. "I will submit," she said, letting Caldwell feel her anxiety, "if General Caldwell orders drugs."

The hostility in him dimmed. Maybe he hoped she might be genuine. He flicked one hand, and the pressure against her skull eased off. "Go with Sentinel Mercell, Terza. She will make you comfortable. I'll follow as soon as I can."

The guard behind Terza grasped her elbow.

"Lieutenant Mercell," Caldwell added.

The Sentinel woman turned around.

"No drugs," he said. "That is an order."

Esme Rogonin sat at table, clutching a cloth serviette in her lap as she silently finished her soup. Her father had actually invited one of his mercenaries to dine with them. Esme was trying—vainly, she feared— to hide her disgust. This was the father of that sniper who nearly killed Lady Firebird, eating Netaian food in the palace's most elegant private dining room! Until this hour, Esme had been able to pretend that her father hadn't collaborated to commit murder.

And something was terribly wrong with her father. In place of his usually regal manner, he was cordial—even effervescent—with the intruder and his aides. Esme had warned her mother, who was visiting the Parkai estate, by CT link. Duchess Liona had dispatched a driver to pick up Esme and her other children, but he had not arrived. Maybe the mercenaries wanted hostages.

It
was
odd for all four Rogonin children, heirs and wastlings, to eat together. Beyond Esme at table, her young brother Kelsen catapulted bits of food at Lady Diamond, the youngest. Thank the Powers, Esme could still pass for fourteen. She made a point of slouching, looking intimidated. If they thought of her as a child, they might not consider her a threat.

"Until this incident," said the oddly stooped chief mercenary, "we had no idea how dangerous Firebird is. I guarantee that she will commit no further treachery."

Esme kept her fork moving. Her father laughed merrily, and his guest watched him. . . instead of his eldest daughter. A good thing, because if they really could read people's emotions, her horror might attract attention.

What would her life be like as heiress to a seized throne, controlled by offworld interests? It was clear to her, if not to her father, that these people were about to grab all Netaia. Did she have to choose between collaborating with these murderous "unbound" or with Prince Tel's Federate friends?

She never, never could take a warning to the Federates. That would betray all she believed. But Prince Tel had pricked her conscience at the ball, talking about wastlings, and motives, and . . . and her little brother and sister. Her father's actions today were
wrong.

She shivered over her hot soup.

Carradee woke up wreathed in a strange feeling of peace. She checked the time—three hundred forty. For a while, she listened gratefully to the soft hum of Daithi's spinal regen apparatus and his slow, steady breathing. Then she rolled out of her bed toward the twins' chamber. A small luma glimmered there, and a watch-keeping sekiyr lay on the bed between warming cots. Her nephews slept peacefully. Tonight she plainly saw Brennen in Kinnor's relaxed expression. That was unusual, but she knew an Angelo from a Caldwell.

Silently she dressed. She couldn't have said why. She slipped out of the medical suite and walked onto the waterside pavement. A pale turquoise band rimmed the vast pool, shadowed by islands and square stepping-stones but casting enough light to walk by.

She followed a stepping-stone path to an island and sank onto a stone bench. There, she gazed into the water until memories came: Iar-let tottering onto her feet and then, seemingly only a day or two later, dashing naked out onto the palace balcony. Kessaree shrieking with laughter at her sister's facemaking. Iarlet explaining soberly why she would not, could not, wear the same-colored skinshirt two days in a row.

It felt good to weep.

Half an hour later, Master Jenner strode out onto the stepping-stones, and Carradee knew what he must tell her. She was as ready to hear it as a mother ever could be. She'd cried herself dry.

"They have found your girls' bodies," he said as they sank back onto the bench, "and the wreckage of their shuttle. It was attacked, Carradee. I am sorry. They were . . . murdered. We should receive more details soon."

She shook her head. "They are with Him," she murmured. "They are safe. No one can hurt them now. But pray for me, Master. And for Daithi."

"Shall we move the twins from your suite, to give you time to grieve your daughters?"

"No!" Carradee cried.

Firebird's pulse pounded as she sat and watched the tall, pale woman walk out. Signs of early pregnancy—the full, high breasts', the barely darkened mask across her cheeks—were there for any observant woman to read. Terza Shirak's statement, "The plan was to lure you in," told her the rest of the story.

Could anyone call this Brennen's child, since he had no role in its conception?

At least Terza was trying to see that no one found out except Bren-nen and herself. Firebird tried to imagine Brennen's eyes, Brennen's personality. . . Brennen's abilities . . . imprinted on a baby that wasn't hers, too. They knew that the Shuhr carried on the Ehretan tradition of genetic research. They'd discussed the possibility that his cells might have been cloned. Now ramifications were occurring to her that she hadn't considered. Especially. . .

Was the child genetically Terza's, too? A Caldwell-Shirak?
Mighty Singer, what is this?
Her arms and shoulders still trembled with her body's reaction to danger. She hadn't lost her maternal instincts, either—she wanted to rush home and grab Kiel and Kinnor, to never let them out of her sight again.

Terza's other revelation, alone, would have stunned her. Cassia Tal-umah had told the truth when she claimed her brother "brought in tissue samples" from Iarlet and Kessaree. If that man, Terza's victim, really killed them, then . . .

Poor Carrie!

Then Firebird's promise in the Hall of Charity could shackle her to a gilt chair and the weight of a world. She no longer wanted that, not even as a reformer.

Mighty Singer, send me back to Hesed, to my children, my new life. I whs wrong to try to return to this.

Then she thought of the ice miner and thousands of other commoners struggling for a share of Netaia's prosperity. She thought of monstrous Hinnana Prison and wondered how many children's parents languished inside.

Singer, what do I do?

She knew one answer from Path instruction: Commit this day to His will and live it. She would be grateful for specific guidance, though.

Brennen looked in her direction, and his lips tightened again. She could almost read his thoughts:
You shouldn't have been here.
His next glance was at Burkenhamn. The big marshal stood motionless, covering his face with both hands. Governor Danton leaned against the tri-D well, staying close to his guards.

Surely he hadn't heard Terza's revelations.

"You have your prisoner," said Danton. "Finally. Who's your strongest Sentinel here?"

"Firebird's bodyguard, Major Mattason, has the highest ES rating." Brennen said it without hesitating. "But Lieutenant Colonel Harris is better qualified for access interrogation, and even before he begins, I have orders to open." He raised an eyebrow to Uri. "Marshal Burkenhamn," Brennen added, extending a hand, "my sincere apologies. You must not doubt what the Shuhr woman said about her compatriots planting that suggestion."

"Not at all." Burkenhamn cleared gravel from his voice. "I felt it as she shouted. I deeply wanted to kill Commander Angelo, whom I respect."

"Commander
Caldwell"
she murmured.

Burkenhamn didn't seem to hear. "And it... still..."

Burkenhamn's guards seized his arms, but he threw them off. Shel stepped toward him, blocking Firebird's view. Uri hissed a word of command.

The marshal came no closer. Firebird saw only his legs, working as if he were trying to walk in mud. "Not my doing," he muttered. "Help me, Sentinel."

"Gladly," said Brennen. "And I need one thing from you, sir. I need a set of orders, for Second Commander. . . Caldwell," he said after a moment's hesitation. "I need her to report to me, for the duration of an upcoming operation."

"Yours," said Burkenhamn.

Shel stepped aside, but not far, and she kept her blazer ready. Now Firebird had a clear view of her marshal and the anguish on his lined face. "Commander," he said, "report to Field General Caldwell for the duration of operation . . ." He broke off, glancing at Brennen. Getting no response, he turned back to Firebird. "You will remain under General Caldwell's orders until he dismisses you back to me."

Chain of command wasn't so different from palace nod-and-bow, really. Firebird raised her right arm stiffly, touched one eyebrow, and murmured, "Y'sir."

Brennen glanced to one side. The Sentinel at Burkenhamn's right shoulder nudged the big man's arm. "Come with me, Marshal." Two more Sentinels followed him out, through a different door from the one the Shuhr woman's guards used.

Brennen's glare softened, and Firebird felt his concern. "Commander," he said, "your first order is back to sick bay. Your exercise interval ended five minutes ago. I'll join you there," he added.

Her medical aide drew out a hand controller for her mobility chair. Firebird still heard her pulse thudding in her ears. She raised her wrist and saw that the cardiac monitor's display had gone red, into the danger zone ... as if that would surprise anyone. She felt aged, decrepit—

And bitterly resentful, that the Shuhr used Marshal Burkenhamn against her. Once again, her new rank and honor nearly led to tragedy.
I see your point, Mighty Singer. I get the message. Enough!

As the aide steered her back up the corridors, her thoughts fled to Hesed House.
Poor Carradee! Who will tell her she has no daughters?

Brennen waited until she'd passed out of the range where they could share each other's feelings, then clenched a fist. This situation wasn't developing remotely as he'd anticipated.

Glancing around, he beckoned the nearest remaining Sentinel. . . not Uri, who couldn't leave him, but the next closest. "Lieutenant Cowan?"

The young man with the blond beard hustled forward.

"In my quarters, on my work desk. Sealed message roll. Meet me outside sick bay with it."

One more Sentinel left the command center. It was becoming almost private in here. . . .

Then he sensed a tracking tech's alarm from over near the tri-D well. "Sir." The woman stared at him, not the governor. "Messenger ship outbound, heading six-one-two point one-two. Refuses to ID."

Brennen hurried to the three-dimensional cylinder that represented space within the primary Netaian system. Green spheres were planets, silver dots meant satellites, and gold pinpoints represented friendly ships.

The tracking tech pointed toward a gold pinpoint streaking out-system. According to characters displayed alongside, the ship was a DS212 Brumbee messenger, launched from the NPN's Arctica Base, accelerating too quickly for any hope of intercept.

"On that vector," Brennen said softly, "it could be headed for Tallis, or Caroli—or Three Zed." That system lay north-spinward of Caroli. Shuhr agents here could be reporting on events in the Hall of Charity.

What had they concluded?

"Keep trying to reach him by DeepScan," said Governor Danton. "If there's any other unscheduled activity, either on or offworld, notify General Caldwell and myself."

Medical supervisor Adamm Hancock's dark eyes and sharp chin framed a frown as he tucked a microfiber blanket around Firebird's legs and chest, bathing her in warmth. She started to relax. "You're supposed to be working back up to walking," he said, "not trying to get killed."

Her cubicle's door slid open. Brennen stepped in, clutching the silvery message roll down at his side.

"Thank you," Firebird told Med Hancock. "I really didn't plan—"

"Of course not."

"May we have a few minutes alone?" she asked. Over her chest, the regen arc felt oddly warm, almost comforting.

"Ten minutes, General," said the medic. "Then I'm going to sedate her. That'll put her back on schedule."

"Excellent," Brennen answered.

Hancock scurried out. After the door slid shut again, Firebird raised a hand. Brennen seized and stroked it. "You're cold," he said.

"You're warm. Open your orders."

"I will, as soon as I've cleared you to hear them." He set down the message roll to pull the new pocket recorder off his belt, thumb it on, and recite date and time. Then, "Second Commander Firebird Angelo Caldwell, Netaian Planetary Navy, now under my orders, hereby designated my forward attack subcommander." He returned the tiny recorder to its place, then thumbed the cylinder's security seal and twisted the halves apart. "Breathe, Mari," he murmured.

She hadn't realized she was holding her breath. She took a deep, slow breath. Then another.

He unrolled the sheaf carefully. His eyes flicked left and right several times. "Operation Yidah," he read softly. "We're . . . hmm." He frowned.

"What, Brenn?" she demanded.

His displeasure came through strongly. "We're to take off, with prisoner, and interrogate en route to a rendezvous point north-spinward of Caroli."

Hastily, she calculated travel time against her retraining schedule. She could do it—barely—if they really were headed to Three Zed. " 'Yidah' sounds Ehretan," she said.

"It is," he murmured, still scanning. "It's one of those prime words with half a dozen meanings. Various uses of the hand—to throw a stone, cast out, offer praise . . ." He lowered the roll, widening his eyes. "Or thanksgiving. Or to bemoan."

"The hand," she said softly. "A sword in His hand."

He shook his head as if to clear it. "We'll leave today. You'll have ten days en route, and that doesn't give you any leeway at all. I'm ordering you to stick with that schedule."

"I will." Firebird knew which system "ten days en route" indicated. "Then we are ordered to Three Zed."

"Of course." He curled the sheets between his hands and slipped them back into the message roll. "As directly as possible. No devious attack vector, no warning. The Federacy wants us to burn it to bare rock."

Her breath caught. This went further than she had expected. Clearly, the Federates were so terrorized by the Shuhr's destruction of an entire city, and by their uncontrolled use of epsilon talents, that they felt this was justified. Even Brennen's people had been warned that they would be called to this task one day.

"But is there a discretionary provision?" she asked. That holy call still had not come.

He shook his head, washing her with a dizzying mixture of reluctance, eagerness, anger, and pity. "Even if our force is wiped out, the Holy One always keeps a remnant alive. Only sixty-two of the faithful survived Ehret—Mattah and his family, their friends, and the orphans."

"Then at worst, Kiel and Kinnor will be part of the next remnant," she murmured. He'd obviously thought this through.

"They sent a roster of ships and personnel waiting to rendezvous with us." He ran a hand over his hair. "My first job is to get a transport with a full med suite, and a secure room to hold . . . Terza."

"Quickly," she said. "Once they know she defected, they're likely to throw everything at this base."

She still felt his uneasiness. He leaned down and brushed her lips with his. He smelled of kass. "By the time you come out of sedation, we're likely to be en route. Is there anything you need to accomplish first?"

"Yes. I've still got some business for Tel." There had to be some way she could disinherit herself. But when Terza's news about Iarlet and Kessaree reached Netaia from other sources, the electors would have to either acclaim a new monarch or else give the crown to Rogonin.

"Finish it," he said, and his eyes softened. He'd probably guessed half of the thoughts that just blasted through her mind. "You're prone, you're under regen. I'll hold off the med for a few minutes."

He sent a sick-bay aide for her recall pad as he left. When the aide returned, Firebird dictated a new will, with orders for copies to be sent to Hesed, the Netaian Electorate, and Prince Tel. If she died at Three Zed, Tel was to distribute whatever remained of her allowance to Kinnor and Kiel, pending their confirmation as heirs. If by some miracle Carradee conceived again, he was to petition the Electorate to restore the throne to Carradee's line. Three days ago, she wouldn't have requested that.
Dying does change a person. . ..

Finally, she outlined her plan to reconfigure the Angelo portfolio to support eventual covenance with the Federacy. Effective immediately, Tel was to divest her of hidebound, nobility-based trade and industry, using the family wealth to support offworld trade and programs that would strengthen the common classes.

If he hurried, they might prevent civil war after all.

In the two hours estimated to convert the Luxian diplomatic transport
Sapphira
for his needs, Brennen had to do two days' work. The heavily armored, adequately armed transport had been assigned to the Luxian ambassadors, Comete and Cometesse Remelard. Brennen's message roll did include a
commandeer
order from Regional command, and on seeing it, the mustachioed comete instantly relinquished claim to his ship. Danton's top engineer went to work, removing most of its comforts to make room for additional quarters and converting an inner cargo hold to a reasonably comfortable brig.

With work teams dispatched, Brennen paused in a secure room off the corridor and reread his orders, trying to commit all salient points to memory. Even after all the Shuhr had done to his family, and to the rest of the Whorl, he did not want to command such a brutal operation without divine confirmation. This could also be the end of Special Operations as a significant group if his force was defeated. Most of the rest of Special Ops, and Thyrica's Alert Forces, waited at the rendezvous.

Please confirm this,
he begged.
Send us with your blessing, or else show me I must disobey Federate orders again. You know I will obey either call. The Federacy is afraid, but you are above fear. We all live by your unconscionable grace and mercy.

He'd given up his chance at the Federate High command by disobeying an order he couldn't follow in clear conscience. He would do that again, if necessary, to save Sentinel lives. That would mean a permanent dismissal from Federate service. At least.

Firebird was the last Angelo, though. The Electorate would undoubtedly call her back to Netaia. He was willing to serve wherever the Holy One sent them. If only he knew. . . clearly. . .