Crown Of Fire (26 page)

And what about Harcourt Terrell, killed under watch-link when he attacked Lady Firebird? The link supervisor, Arac Nahazh, was unfortunately dead. They would never know what killed Terrell. But definitely, there was more afoot than RIA development.

For years, his people had planned to set the Federacy against its Sentinel defenders. In the Shiraks' absence, Adiyn had continued the vital raids, relieving the Federacy of another half dozen fighters, two military transports, and even a small cruiser. Parked here in orbit, they could be sent against Tallis with only hours' warning, along a vector that would make it look as if the attack originated from a Sentinel world. The colony's commander-in-chief continued to conscript and train pilots out of the settlements. Adiyn wished the suicide-compulsion sessions weren't necessary, but weighed against humankind's immortality, already-limited lives had little value.

He had also sent signals to deep-cover agents on several worlds, including Thyrica. Those agents would trumpet to the Federacy that the Sentinels, with their terrifying new technology, must bear the responsibility for any further Sunton-style attack. Maybe nongifted Thyrians would respond to his own attack at Tallis by leveling the Sentinel College.

But what about this other development? He rubbed his chin. "What happened? How did they miss her?"

"I've transmitted a tri-D sequence, recorded off newsnet coverage."

Adiyn touched a control. "I see the file. And Terza?"

The messenger's hesitation prepared him for bad news. "Talumah's last set of subconscious commands appears to have failed. Her original orders kicked in, and she defected to them ... by the old plan."

Against a new compulsion? The girl's Shirak genes had proved stronger than he suspected, stronger than the submissive maternal line that Modabah had ordered when he had her conceived.

Or was this a matter of human will—and did the girl have rogue epsilon talents? "Her deep linkages should remain," said Adiyn. "We have an agent among them now."

"Whether the old sabotage orders will activate, we won't know until potentially too late. But it's clear now that they were trying to trap one of us just as surely as we tried to get Caldwell for a full mind-access strip. Shirak wants you on highest alert."

Adiyn would do nothing without checking the shebiyl and the most likely paths the future would take. "Report to the communication center as soon as you're down," he said.

The courier signed off. Adiyn fed the burst-transmitted tri-D file to the secure booth's media block. As he watched, he smiled at the secondary explosions, minor—but noisy—charges Micahel must have planted around the nave, coordinated cues blaring that Firebird was about to die. As always, Micahel displayed a gift for showmanship.

But plainly, something unprecedented had happened on that carpeted stage. He shut down the projection unit and waved off all lights.

Terza! At least she'd left them with the idea that a Casvah mutation—not the Caldwell family at all!—produced whatever enabled Firebird to survive at that Netaian altar. This probably had destroyed Dru Polar, and Terrell as well.

Then they had a second formidable enemy. He must not underestimate Firebird again. He had already cloned breeder cells from the other Casvah-Angelo specimens. He would fertilize them immediately. Epsilon abilities usually matured at around twelve years old, but multiple ayin and hormone treatments could push epsilon maturity forward at the cost of other brain functions. In less than a year, he might produce laboratory creatures who could be epsilon-manipulated, but who could scarcely be called human.

Polar's offspring, he decided. Polar's strength, matched with the Casvah mutation. "Casvah, the vessel, a cup full of death," he'd called Phoena.

Polar and Phoena, then?

In the booth's darkness, he reached outside himself for the elusive shebiyl.

Firebird perched on the edge of her bunk in that narrow private cubicle. Medic Hancock returned his instruments to their case. Brennen stood behind him, leaning against a bulkhead, arms crossed over his chest. Shel stood just outside the door, with only her left arm and shoulder visible.

"Lady Firebird," Hancock said, glowering, "you've done an excellent job of sticking to your regimen, but under any other circumstances, I would not even consider releasing you to combat status."

"I understand," she said. "Under any other circumstances, I might have second thoughts, too. But I'm ready."

Hancock exhaled sharply, pulled a hand tool from his tunic pocket, and applied the tool to her wrist monitor. It fell free.

Firebird watched her medic leave. The countdown to drop point had begun. In twelve hours,
North Ice
would reenter normal space in the Zed system.

Brennen sat down beside her on the cot.

"Everything's under control, then?" she asked.

"Planned, replanned, and backed up with fail-safes," he said, running a hand over his face.

She felt his uneasiness. "I wish there were another way to end this threat, too," she said.

"No one is utterly evil." Brennen clasped his hands between his knees. "The One made us all. The same Ehretans who changed their genes changed ours."

"Is it harder," she asked gently, "now that you remember the place?"

"Yes and no. I was not treated well. But not all of them were as evil as ... the ones who kept me in custody."

She nodded, staring across at the door, a meter away. "And the bioweapons?"

He'd mentioned flash-frozen cultures, organisms that destroyed all remnants of life on Ehret.

"That," he said, "is the best reason to burn it down to bare rock. But they are exiles, too."

"They made themselves exiles. They declared the war, and they ended it with those bioweapons."

"But they also honor the memory of Ehret. Better than we do, in some ways."

"Not the ways that count."

"No," he admitted. "Their greatest pride is in rebellion. They want to make themselves into a higher species, something immortal in the flesh. That would be a terrible fate ... to exist forever in a life that's tainted, growing more and more tainted ourselves."

"Or else stronger?" she suggested.

"Maybe. And when I think of the people who would love to see their artifacts—"

"That we're about to destroy."

"If we can." He said it like a sigh. "I would pray, if I knew I would survive this, that this will not haunt me the rest of my life."

A touch of that mysterious dread came through, and she seized one of his hands. "What have you seen that you still haven't told me?" she demanded.

For several minutes she felt the low rumble that meant he was struggling with his thoughts. She felt a faint engine vibration, too, and she breathed the acid tang of disinfected air. She edged sideways until her leg pressed against his.

"I saw a fighter," he said quietly. "My ship, though I'm not sure how I knew it was mine. It was in pieces. It looked as if it'd taken a missile hit."

She resisted the downward pull of his dread. "That wasn't necessarily a vision, Brenn. We often dream about our worst fears."

He gripped her hand. "I was not asleep. But you're right. And for decades, the shamarrs have told us that if we refused to pick up the sword when He called, then our enemies would slaughter millions. I can't wait for them to strike Tallis or Netaia." He reached over, twining both hands around the base of her neck. "What have we lived for, Mari. . . ourselves, our pleasures, our own wills and dreams? If I live for you, and you for me, we exist only for ourselves."

In this mood, he seemed utterly strange ... yet he had always been vaguely alien, though he was half of herself. "I know," she murmured.

He massaged the back of her neck. "Whatever happens, it will be the highest good. Mari, if anything happens to me, I want you to be prepared. Tell Master Dabarrah I was told, 'It is time. Destroy my enemies.' He'll understand. He'll ease your grief, and Kinnor and Kiel will give you a thousand reasons to live."

"Tell him yourself," she murmured.
Didn't you order him to lead the fight, Mighty Singer?
"I'll be there with you." She craned her neck to kiss him, then let her mind go blank, her body limp, as they relaxed together on the cot. She concentrated on the warmth of his body. He wouldn't die out there in the cold.
Singer, he has done everything you asked him. You have no reason to punish him, and you've already disciplined me.

He caressed her throat, then her jaw line, her lips. They'd hardly had an hour alone since her injury. She wondered how many other vital things they'd put off for "one day."

Life was a promise that had to break ... break free of the physical, of space and of time. Tonight, she lay with her bond mate.

She slapped the cubicle's privacy control. The door slid shut.

Spent and unable to speculate any further, she pressed her head against Brennen's chest. His heart beat a strong, slow rhythm beneath her ear.

All her horizons slowly receded. It had been a spectacular hour. But in that Brennen-place at the back of her mind, she felt a certainty that tormented him cruelly. Whether or not they survived, this was the end of a part of their lives. If she didn't want a crown anymore, how did he feel about leading a holy war?
If there's some way to show mercy, spare him this,
she prayed. Then she drew a deep breath and raised her head. "Lock me down again, Brenn. We have eleven hours, and I'm entitled to one more regen session."

She rearranged her clothing, and then he clamped the field generator in place. He covered the humming arch with a pillow and rested his head on it. Waves of his drowsiness washed over her, dragging her down with her weary lover into unmeasured depths.

A deceleration alarm blasted Firebird awake. Brennen rolled off the bunk and released the healing arch. "It's time," he said softly, plucking his midnight blue tunic off a wall hangar. "Ten minutes to hard decel. Three hours to launch."

"Wait," she said. Closing her eyes, she envisioned the wall and pressed through, touching her epsilon carrier as smoothly as she'd ever done.

"Good," he murmured, closing the last clasp.

She seized his arm and pulled him into an embrace.

"I hate to see you risk this," he said. "I may not be able to ride your wing back in."

"I might be able to stay conscious."

"Do whatever is necessary. You must," he said, drawing back far enough to pierce her with the brilliance of his eyes, "no matter what happens. I will not build false dreams, and I won't run from what must be done."

"I won't either," she said firmly. "Take this." She fumbled with the little medallion's chain. "Wear it and think of me. And remember Tar-ance—"

"No," he said, and once again, she felt his lingering abhorrence of gold objects. "I gave it to you. Better grab a holdfast."

As the second decel alarm sounded, she seized a bulkhead loop with one hand and grabbed Brennen with the other,

As the cruiser started its stiff deceleration toward the Zed system, inertia momentarily pushed her toward the bulkhead. Something rattled inside a nearby storage bin.

Then Brennen pushed away. "See you shortly," he murmured.

Brenn had shown her where to find the uniform locker Burkenhamn had sent. In the cubicle's adjoining freshing room, after a fast vapor-bath, she slipped into Netaian cobalt blue for the first time since . . . since not long after her capture by Federates, at Veroh.

A new insignia over her breast startled her: the gold-edged Fedorate slash. Like Burkenhamm, she was now Federate personnel.

Excellent.

Before closing her collar, she gingerly touched the ragged red entry-wound scar on her shoulder, then the fading surgical line across her chest. Both wounds were too deep for biotape to prevent scarring. "I owe the Shuhr for these scars," she told Shel's reflection in the mirror.

One inner pocket felt lumpy. She fished inside and pulled out the gold three-moon insignia of her new rank. An unfamiliar theater clip separated itself from the pair of three-moons. Veroh? she wondered. Was Netaia issuing theater clips for that disaster?

If so, she'd earned the insignia. She laid the clip and the three-moons back inside the locker, hoping she would survive to wear them on a noncombat occasion.

The quartermaster had included a hair catch. Hastily, she made a tail at the nape of her neck, then clipped the long gloves to her belt. At the bottom of the duffel was a heavy gray life suit and pilot's helmet.

Those were donned just this side of the cockpit. Carrying them, she walked up to the bridge.

She found Brennen there, conferring with his other subcomman-ders.
North Ice,
a light cruiser, had a large scan/sensor station and four transceivers, one inboard and three for command purposes. Between one subcommander's chair—occupied by Brennen at the moment—and the sensor station, engineers had moved one of the sim stations and linked it to Firebird's fighter controls, so that a remote pilot could steer her out of danger if fusion left her unconscious.

She hung back, leaning against a bulkhead while she waited for Brennen to finish. Threat axes, refuel procedures, med evacuations . . . as he'd said, every plan had been laid with excruciating attention to detail. He hadn't had any more time to dress than she had, but his jaw was clean and beardless, the line of it firm and straight.

She listened intently, glad for Brennen's steady nerves. If she ever wrote another clairsa piece for him, she must capture the tension of this moment, his calm acceptance of a pressure no one else understood . . . and the wisp of light red-brown hair that stuck out from having been slept on crookedly.

She spotted Ellet Dardy sitting at a bank of transcorders, uniformed as crisply as ever, ready to record and transmit the history they would make today. Ellet saluted, and Firebird returned the gesture.

Uri stood behind Brennen, still at his post. Brennen straightened his shoulders and reached for the subcommanders' hands in turn, finishing with Colonel Keeson. "Go with the One, General," she said.

"And you," he answered. Then he looked at Firebird.

He was her commanding officer now. She pushed off the bulkhead and saluted.

"Hangar-bay one," he said.

She embraced Shel. "Thank you," she murmured, then hurried out, leaving Shel on the bridge.

Uri also stayed behind. Their duties had ended.

Three men and a woman, the rest of Day Flight, stood in a briefing room near the hangar-bay's lift door. All carried life suits and helmets. Beyond a long window, crewers scurried through the bay, readying the fightercraft, performing final checks. Firebird sniffed an odor of ozone and fuel.

Brennen gathered his flight team around the table for final instructions. "There's some risk," he said, "of erratic asteroids in this vicinity. Watch for debris."

The man closest to Firebird—Major Hannes Dickin, a nephew of the shamarr—held his head erect. Since he had volunteered to fly the lead position, that would make him the Shuhr's number one target. She wondered if they could remote-manipulate orbiting rocks.

"To approach closely enough to strike," Brennen said, "we have to enter fielding range. Commander Caldwell, you will fly slot and hang back, since you are at greatest risk from fielding attack."

She nodded.

"We will remain within maximum shield-overlap range," Brennen went on, "take one pass at the fielding unit pinpointed on our targeting displays, and egress. Night Flight will follow three minutes behind us."

The woman beside Brennen tapped one finger against her helmet. Firebird wasn't the only nervous one.

"We have to destroy the fielding site," Brennen said. "If Day Flight fails, the operation fails. If you survive an aborted attempt, try to recover on
North Ice
before it accelerates outsystem for Tallis."

"Speaking for all of us, I think," said the stocky man on Brennen's other side, "I don't expect to have that problem, sir."

Firebird raised her head. That was a more typical pilot's attitude, a firm denial that anything might strike his particular craft, no matter how exotic the enemy's technology. She usually heard it after the mission, though . . . not beforehand.

Brennen smiled and kept talking. "Automatic recovery cycles and fire overrides are to be preactivated immediately after launch. If you find yourself acting irrationally, surrender operation of your ship. It will set a reasonably evasive course."

His voice softened. "One more thing. In an environment defended by fielding technology, any pilot who ends up extravehicular will be vulnerable to accentuating attack. Even at Hesed, we use that."

He'd discussed this with her privately. In a fielding zone, an EV pilot's fear and disorientation could be amplified by the Shuhr's coordinated, projected mental powers. This defense caused madness in ninety-nine percent of cases, even at Hesed. The Shuhr might have found ways to make that defense even crueler.

"Therefore, any pilot who goes EV will be moved to the second triage category for later recovery," Brennen continued. "Your EV unit has oxygen for more than an hour, but here, it will be kinder to let events take their course."

Simply falling asleep in the cold . . . Firebird had to agree. It wouldn't be such a terrible way to make the Crossing.

Was that what he foresaw?

No ... he had described a missile hit. He'd said nothing about EV—

"Other questions?" Brennen stared at each pilot for several seconds. Firebird felt him send pulses of epsilon energy, and she guessed he was reinforcing the others' confidence. When he looked at her, her fears did drop away.

He dismissed the group, but she felt him urge her to linger. As soon as the others had left the briefing room, he broke uniform etiquette. He embraced her, one arm pinning her head to his chest, the other arm clenching her waist. She struggled to free her head, then thrust up her chin.

As he kissed her, the scent at the back of her mind intensified, as if he were pushing himself deeply into her memory in the last few seconds remaining to them. Emptied and panting, she shut her mouth as he drew back.

Neither spoke.

Firebird walked out into the main bay, then followed a crewer toward one of the small swept-wing fighters. The crewer halted beside a blocky starter unit and helped her into her depressurization suit. Proof against hard vacuum, with dozens of sealed inner compartments, the life suit would inflate automatically if she lost cabin pressure.

Why bother,
she wondered,
if going EV means madness and death?
She'd trained in a life suit, though. She had always trained the way she meant to fight. It was the only way to survive.

She glanced up at the Light-Five fighter. She'd spent hours simming in this cockpit, first with an instructor and then alone. The fighter was nimble and well shielded. The RIA add-on system's energy demands limited its weaponry, but she did have four programmable missiles and excellent gravidics. She rounded it hastily, sliding her gloved hands along the little ship's smooth surface. Somewhere farther down the row, Brennen was checking out another such RIA fighter, but without remote-pilot capability.

Minding the connectors that dangled from her suit, she climbed aboard. Crewers fastened her in. In the seconds that took, she focused her thoughts beyond today, beyond her lifetime. If Brennen turned out to be the Carabohd descendant who wiped out the nest of evil, then obviously, the rest of the prophecies remained to be fulfilled by Kiel or Kinnor or their descendants.
All the Mighty Singer's power, in human form!
Maybe seen from a human perspective, stuck in the flow of time, the body of prophecy was something like a series of mountain ranges, with nearby peaks obscuring the distant ones. Only when you arrived at the first summit could you see that the second range was still far off. . .

Or something like that. She pulled at each of her suit-to-ship umbilicals and all five harness points, checked that they were secure, then turned thumb-up to her chief.

From far down the row, she sensed a call at the back of her mind. She stretched her neck to peer over the closest fighter's fuselage and spotted a helmeted figure looking her way.

She saluted him.

He touched one gloved finger to his helmet over his lips.

There were few things more useless, Shel Mattason decided, than a bodyguard whose employer was going out into battle.

Colonel Keeson had assigned her and Uri to bridge security, pending their reassignment to retrieval detail, post-combat. Really, both posts were gifts, excuses to observe. She sat on her assigned stool, following the glimmering break indicator's countdown to final decel. In her breast pocket was a heatsealed letter like many she'd carried before. This one was from Firebird, to be opened only if she and Brennen were both killed. Uri carried a similar packet. She almost hoped that if one of the Caldwells died today, both of them died.

She glanced around. Actually, they all might.

A Carolinian veteran of the Netaian campaign sat at the modified flight simulator, ready to override Firebird's flight controls and bring her back.

A com officer's voice rose. "One minute to drop point, at mark. Three, two, one. Mark."

Shel pressed her palms against her thighs.

Firebird pulled her splayed-finger RIA array over both ears, then stretched on her pilot's cap. Finally, she tipped her head into her helmet as the cockpit bubble dropped.

Her in-suit transceiver was already live. Brennen's tenor voice rose over a drone of more distant voices to call off final checks. His Federate terminology was significantly different from the orders in which she'd drilled, years before—but she'd used her sim time to reprogram her expectations. Brennen clipped out, "Day Leader, generator check."

"Two, check," she heard. "Three, check." She waited her turn, then answered, "Six, check."

Her seat vibrated as the engines lit. She scanned cockpit lights. When cued again, she answered, "Propulsion, shielding, go. Weaponry, countermeasures, go. All go, sir."

"Run-up," Brennen ordered the flight. "Full brake and throttle."

Firebird applied brake to the Thyrian craft, then gradually, she pushed throttle power fully forward. Still racing that Shuhr messenger—not to mention Micahel and his escorts—they must do everything at full speed, including launch. It would be a loose formation, with no dependence on cross-programming. Night Flight, on board
Weather-way,
would launch just as loose.

"Throttle check," said Brennen's voice in her ear.

She'd flown a personal fightercraft with him aboard over a year ago. She wished momentarily that she might ride out with him now, in a two-person trainer.

But that might not have done the job. They needed the power and versatility of two RIA systems.

She answered in her turn, then laid one hand on the brake lever. Seconds passed. Her heart thudded. She glanced down for her life-signs cuff, but it was gone now. Lights in the hangar-bay winked off. Ahead of her position, a force barrier shimmered with the chaos of quasi-orthogonal space.

"On my mark," said Brennen's voice, "brake release."

Go with us, Mighty Singer!

The shimmer grew brighter.

Seated in the communication bubble on the Golden City's south arc, Juddis Adiyn wrestled with the shebiyl. He had foreseen an attack, and that his forces were needed here before he sent any to Tallis. All probabilities showed strongly in Three Zed's favor today. Along several possible streams, he saw himself as Eldest of Three Zed colony. The Shiraks would not like that, but without his assistance, their line would die out anyway. His leadership might be best for the unbound starbred.

His reclined seat faced the transparent viewing bubble. On it, dozens of reflective display zones showed data, translucent against the backdrop of space. It had been a long day, and unless he'd read the shebiyl wrong, it would end well. At stations around him, other ranking officers called off orders. Adiyn had served some time in both fielding and command stations, so he knew battle language. The noise kept wresting his mind off the shebiyl. Tonight, he had the disquieting sense that something larger and more powerful than himself was controlling all paths of the future.