Rift in the Races (50 page)

But she worried for Tytamon.

“Is he alive?” she asked then, coming back up to her knees and gripping the bars at the end of the cage nearest him. “Please, just tell me if he’s still alive.”

“No, my dear. He is not. He’s quite dead. My hogs are making a last meal of him as we speak.
Oink
oink
, as I was just saying to an associate.”

She scoured the darkness beneath that hat brim for any shadow of deception, any hint of a lie, but there was nothing to see. He’d said it as matter-of-factly as if he’d simply pronounced that the moon was up tonight.

“You’re lying,” she spat.

“If it makes you feel better to believe that, I completely understand.” He exhaled, a long, bored-sounding rasp. “So, is that all you have for me? I do have other matters to attend.”

“You’re lying,” she said again, but she fell back into the straw. “You’re lying.” The second time was mostly to herself. He had to be lying.

“Then we’re done?” he asked, sounding the soul of courtesy. “You only get one of these question-and-answer sessions from me. So make sure that’s all you want to know. I consider it a professional courtesy. But there won’t be a second. Take advantage while you can.”

“Fuck you,” she spat. “Between the Queen and the fleet, you’re so fucked you’ll never know what hit you. Burn in hell.” She turned from him and crawled into the corner of her cage. She curled up and pulled her knees to her chest, fighting desperately not to cry.

He laughed at her. “Yes, fuck me,” he said. The alien profanity shaped itself awkwardly on his tongue. “And burning in hell. That’s wonderful spirit. It’s too bad nobody knows you’re gone.”

Then he left, leaving her lying in the darkness. Alone.

Chapter 34

A
week after the test with the shuttle—and three others with identical results—a starship was finally put to the test. The decision was made that the
Aspect
would be the first to try, a paradox to many given Captain Asad’s opinion of magic. However, the
Aspect’s
crew—including its captain—had the most experience with the effects of magic on their ship, limited as it was, so sending them made sense. In addition, if the truth be told, the
Aspect
also had the smallest crew, which made it the most expendable if things should go horribly wrong—not that anyone would say such a thing out loud, of course, or at least certainly not officially. Captain Asad took in the arguments from the other captains, and those of the admiral, and in the end agreed to it. Not so much by their reasoning, but out of contempt for what he saw as a wanton display of cowardice from the rest of them. More than one of the arguments presented, couched in logic as they might have been, came from mouths exhorting courage below eyes filled with fear.

Once decided, Conduit Huzzledorf came aboard with a concert of teleporters, the powerful Envette among them and again set to be the primary channeler in the absence of Sir Altin Meade. For command reasons, they were arranged on the bridge in chairs brought up for that purpose and spread as evenly around the space as possible. The conduit sat in the captain’s seat, which irritated Captain Asad to no end, though he did not complain to anyone aloud. One did not need a degree in psychology to recognize the dour declination of his chin or the stony stoicism that precluded even anger from showing upon his face. Captain Asad without a frown was as conspicuous as a solar system without a sun.

They wasted no time going about it either. The mages took their seats around the bridge, Envette channeled the mana and shaped the spell, and the conduit cast it. And just like that, the
Aspect
went from orbit above Tinpoa to the outer edge of the solar system. The
Sarajevo
and the
Abraham
were both waiting nearby to assist with evacuations if they were needed, but in the end, they were not. Just as had happened with the shuttle, though sooner given that this was a much shorter jump than the shuttle’s longest test, the
Aspect’s
reactor went out and the computer’s memory wiped—no amount of buffering seemed to help. However, it was a contingency that the ship’s engineers and technical crew were prepared for and waiting to address. Unlike the shuttle test, this time they had everything literally in hand, backup data ready, and immediately upon emerging from the teleportation, they began the reload. Core systems were online and functioning within eight hours, and the ship was at full capacity and operating normally in just under twenty-one. Everyone agreed it could be done in under fifteen on the next attempt, and a ship with a full contingent could surely do it in less than ten.

However, as propitious as that was, it still meant ten hours of complete vulnerability. Which meant that teleporting into orbit above the Hostile world and unleashing a nuclear barrage really wasn’t going to be a viable strategy. The fleet would have to find a distance that was close but still sufficiently far away to hope they could go unnoticed long enough to restart the ships. Then they could charge in. It wasn’t ideal, but it was possible. The success of the first starship teleport proved it, and Captain Asad was ready to get it done, even if it meant suffering the magicians on his ship.

“Let’s end this,” he demanded of his fellow fleet commanders two days after the
Aspect’s
successful teleport. “A full assault. All or nothing. We tried the Prosperions’ methods and it worked. We didn’t come out here to think and second-guess. We came out here to seek and destroy an enemy. We have located the enemy. It’s time to destroy them and go home. The time to act is now before
someone
decides to change their mind.” Everyone knew who he meant.

Several of the other ships’ captains agreed. Many nodded, and a few commented aloud, “Exactly” and “Get it underway.” But others were not so agreeable, especially among those captains who were not physically in the room, captains who commanded ships still pulling back to the point of rendezvous and who were far less bellicose after the loss of so many ships and crewmembers, captains of ships with systems teetering on the brink of total failure. Many of those heads did not nod. They shook, some adamantly, from side to side. “No,” came a chorus of grumbles. “A terrible idea.”

“We’ve done enough,” said the captain of
NTA II
, a heavy-set woman with short-cropped, gray hair and old-fashioned spectacles on her nose. “We’ve lost enough people, Captain. A better course would be to go back to Earth where we can prepare our defenses. Or, if we must, rebuild the fleet. We can send newer ships, with some of the new juggernauts this time. Our crews are tired. They are broken, many of them. Terrified. It’s been twelve years, Asad. Most of these folks are done. They want to go home.”

The black line of Captain Asad’s brows flew up like a lid thrown off a box of rage, but he kept his tone in check, if barely. “You disgrace your crew with those words, Captain Eugene. I can promise you, my crew still has fight left in them. And, frankly, I know your crew does too. Assuming their leader can find the backbone to lead them properly.”

“Captain,” snapped Admiral Jefferies. “That’s enough.”

“Lead them properly,” erupted Captain Eugene, leaping from her seat upon the bridge of her ship and storming right up into the camera’s eye. “What’s left of
your
crew is still alive, Captain. The tiny fraction that remains. Many ships don’t have that luxury. There is no fraction. Because they’re
all
dead. How many ships do we have to lose, Asad? All of them? Is it your unyielding commitment? To make sure we all die? The rest of your crew and the rest of ours too?”

“Again your cowardice insults the courage and service of those who have given their lives for their homes and loved ones, Captain Eugene.” He spit her rank out as if it were smeared with bile.

“Captains,” repeated Admiral Jefferies. “Enough. Both of you. Sit down.”

Captain Asad sat down, sending contempt across the room to the monitor where the image of Captain Eugene was. “I’ll go by myself if I have to,” he said. “We’re not going home with our tails between our legs. Not this close.”

“Captain,” said the admiral again, this time gently. “Please. I understand your passion. But let’s maintain civility.”

Captain Asad’s cheeks dimpled with the effort of it, and the captains seated on either side of him could hear the gritting of his teeth. But he kept further thoughts to himself.

“All right,” went on the admiral. “So the point is, we have this obvious issue to resolve. And, more immediately, we need to regroup and repair what needs repairing. We must stick together.” Nobody seemed to disagree with this.

“Now,” proceeded the admiral, “as far as pursuing the purpose of finding and exterminating the Hostile threat, we do have a new advantage, thanks to the aid of the Prosperions, that we didn’t have a week ago. For those of you who have not heard, we have successfully teleported a ship and its crew. It was a short jump, but we were able to complete the jump with no long-term negative effects. We have, in this teleportation, a potentially tremendous tactical advantage. It’s risky, but we have to think long and hard about what it is we risk.

“If the plan works, we win. The Andalians are avenged and both Prosperion and Earth and all our various outward bases are safe from the Hostile threat. I, like Captain Asad, feel very strongly that this is our best course, and it is the purpose for which we were originally sent. But I am not unaware of the lengthy nature of this mission and of the colossal losses suffered by so many along the way. I am not inclined any more now to simply issue an order than Admiral Crane was back on Andalia when we all agreed to carry on. Command back on Earth has, again, deferred the decision entirely to us, Director Nakamura asking only that I convey his ‘utmost optimism that we can find a way to solve the Hostile problem prior to our return.’

“So now, as at Andalia, I put it to you, the captains of this fleet, to decide. Are we going to finish this, for good or ill, or are we going home? A show of hands, who’s for finishing it?”

Forty hands went up. Thirteen, by their silence, voted for going home. Captain Eugene looked as if she’d just been betrayed by her closest friends. “Are you people kidding me? This is a goddamn death wish,” she said. There were a few whose downward gazes suggested they agreed.

Admiral Jefferies silenced whatever Captain Asad had been about to say with a pleading glance and a hand on his forearm. The
Aspect’s
captain relented, but leaned back with a satisfied expression, throwing his arm over the back of his chair. He finally had his war. A real one, one they could take the offensive in.

“Then we go on,” said the admiral. He turned to the captains seated around the table with him. “Close up shop on Tinpoa Base, and evacuate Little Earth. I want all hands on deck. Let’s get this done. We’ll begin teleportation exercises with the Prosperion magicians from the location they’ve fixed for themselves outside the system. When we’ve got the bugs worked out, we’ll rendezvous with the rest of you.” He turned back to the wall monitor and included them with a movement of his hand. “We’ll patch up your ships and get you your turns to practice working with the sorcerers. We’ll end this war once and for all, and then we can all go home.”

A chorus of
hooahs
went around the table, save for a few silent voices who stared, dumbstruck, into their laps.

Shutting down and packing up Tinpoa Base took only a matter of days. Most of the mining equipment was left in place along with a few smaller bits of machinery for when they returned, or when someone returned, but the large power plants and atmospheric units were all taken back to their respective ships—too valuable to leave behind on a mission where ten hours would be spent with systems down, not to mention the many distant fleet ships that had taken considerable damage to their own backup systems during the fight with the Hostiles.

Roberto was kept busy during the evacuation of Tinpoa, and he spent a lot of time ferrying equipment and personnel back and forth between the emptying base and the various starships. But finally it was done, and he was about to leave it for good, or at least for as long as it took to wipe the Hostiles out. Or to die.

“I’ll be seein’ ya after you’ve whipped ‘em good,” said mine foreman Ilbei Spadebreaker, gripping Roberto’s hand in a farewell handshake. They stood before the open hatch of Roberto’s shuttle, the ship now none the worse for wear, its systems fully restored after being the first guinea pig for a teleport. “Take the fight ta ‘em quick,” Ilbei told him, “and then get on back so as I can have this here job back. You people made minin’ right easy with them contraptions a’ yers, an’ Her Majesty been payin’ me handsome ta stand there an’ watch ‘em work. Far better wages ‘n the lot we get down there in them crumblin’ old holes of ours—and fer less than half the sweat!”

Roberto nodded and clapped the pot-bellied old miner on the shoulder with his free hand, the other still gripped in Ilbei’s vice-like mitt. “Fast as we can. You just make sure your boys in the fancy dresses get that damn crystal ball flying soon, so we aren’t out there all by ourselves.”

“I haven’t got much say so with the magic folk, but I’ll give ‘em what fer if’n they ask.”