Scattered Suns (44 page)

Chapter 91—OSIRA’H

Although she had been bred and trained for this, events swept up on Osira’h like a foaming wall of angry water bursting from behind a dam. Despite her reservations, she quickly became consumed with her own circumstances. The die was cast, and she would finish what she had been trained to do.

While Yazra’h finalized all the details and dealt with the human and Ildiran refugees, Osira’h meditated to sharpen her mental abilities and prepare for her destiny. If she performed her task successfully, there would be no further Ildiran victims in this war. But if she failed, she herself would become the next casualty. Then all of the secrets would die with her.

One of the warliners turned about with the rescued skyminers and headed back to Ildira. The six remaining vessels would be sufficient to deliver Osira’h’s encounter chamber into the deep clouds. The number of Solar Navy battleships did not matter: Everything now depended on one little girl alone.

At last, after Yazra’h said a quiet and touching farewell, Osira’h was ready to go.

Gauzy chemical clouds enfolded her as she sat inside the crystalline bubble, now entirely cut off from the warliners and the reassuring company of her sister.

At Qronha 3, the ships had found dissipating signs of smoke, the remnants of the one-sided battle. By now, the wreckage of the human and Ildiran complexes had plunged deep to the equilibrium limits, and the hydrogues had returned to their lair. Osira’h would have to go find them.

Reinforced with the toughest polymers and alloy frameworks, her chamber had no engines, no weapons—those things would be irrelevant when she finally met the hydrogues. Orbiting so high above Qronha 3, the warliners could never retrieve her now. If she did not succeed in her mission, the loss of her life would be the least of all the grim consequences. As she descended, Osira’h knew her fate was in the hands of the hydrogues.

She would serve in the same role as the Klikiss robots had once acted—before the robots broke all ties with the Ildiran Empire at Hrel-oro. As a bridge between two completely alien species, she had to open a line of communication with the enemy, convince them to listen to the Mage-Imperator. What concessions was her father willing to make? What unconscionable bargains?

Her ship fell like a stone, and Osira’h clung to her padded crash seat, concentrating, sending out a mental message to augment the signal from her transmitting system. She
needed
the hydrogues to come to her. She hoped the aliens would be curious enough to come and inspect her, rather than destroy the encounter chamber outright.

The crystal walls glowed from friction as gas molecules scraped against the smooth sides. The vessel had been built to withstand these horrific conditions. Around her, the atmosphere thickened.

Osira’h tried harder, forcing her thoughts outward, as she had done many times in practice sessions on Dobro. She closed her eyes against the distracting colors and chimera shapes of the storms. She gripped tightly with her small hands and continued to send out her thoughts.
I have a job to do.

She didn’t know what this task would cost her. Before, when she’d been innocent and gullible, she had been willing to pay any price to make Designate Udru’h and the Mage-Imperator proud. She had wanted to do anything to make her mentor happy. But with visions of her mother in her head, she was not as sure. Osira’h was no longer convinced that the secret-filled Ildiran Empire deserved such a sacrifice from her.

As her crystal bubble continued downward, she saw movement in the thickening vapors around her, which resolved into the smooth diamond hulls of warglobes. Blue lightning crackled from their pyramidal protrusions.

Osira’h held on, energetically sending her thoughts. I must speak with you. I represent your former allies. We want to end this war between our races.

The warglobes drifted next to her, accompanying her crystal bubble. Without warning, she was thrown to one side with an abrupt jerk as the hydrogue vessels captured her with an invisible beam. She sensed no returning thoughts, no acknowledgment.

Unhurried, the warglobes dragged her bubble like a fish in a net. Osira’h lost track of time and distance. All the while, she continued sending her message. With widening eyes and increasing awe, she saw an enormous complex of faceted globes that formed an immense citysphere. The hydrogue metropolis was full of alien angles and curves that joined in unorthodox directions. It was like a magical structure from the stories she had absorbed from her mother’s thoughts, the lost city of Atlantis or a fabled fairy kingdom.

The girl did not allow herself to be fooled. The hydrogues were not ethereal or benevolent fantasy creatures. They were deadly enemies who had already proved their thirst for utter destruction.

The warglobes pulled her encounter bubble through a membrane in the citysphere wall. Osira’h let her thoughts resonate outward in an uninterrupted silent shout. Peering through the transparent wall, she waited.

At last, quicksilver shapes formed themselves into humanoid bodies. Five of the flowing hydrogues approached her, each one identical, each costumed like the Roamer victim it had copied before. As part of her intensive training, Osira’h had reviewed every scrap of information known about the enemy, including images from the Whisper Palace on Earth.

The weight of responsibility pressed around her, like the incredible force of the surrounding atmosphere. She leaned forward against the protective crystal barrier. The hydrogue figures stood shimmering before her. It was time to open negotiations.

Chapter 92—RLINDA KETT

As luck would have it, the Moon base alarm sounded even before the
Curiosity
cleared the top of the crater wall. Below them, the
Blind Faith
was still cycling through engine warm-up. BeBob looked sick in the copilot’s seat beside Rlinda, drowning in reality. He glanced worriedly at his ship.

“We’d better get moving,” she said. Without her usual double-checks, Rlinda soared away from the Moon’s gravity field. She slapped the panel with the flat of her hand and tried to squeeze out more acceleration. On the screen, blips indicated swarms of fast Remoras coming in from perimeter patrols.

“The
Curiosity
was never designed to be taken into battle, you know,” she told him. “Brace yourself.”

“Who said anything about battle?” BeBob’s voice cracked. “How about we don’t let them catch up with us in the first place?”

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”

Roaring in closer, the squadron commander transmitted in a voice that sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard, “You are ordered to stand down and return to the Moon base.”

Rlinda signaled back, “This isn’t a military ship, mister. You don’t have any authority to give me orders.”

“Well, those hot jazers give them some provisional authority—”

“Quiet, BeBob.” She opened a general channel without video. “Excuse me, but I was
told
to leave, and in no uncertain terms. Make up your minds.”

“We believe you are holding the fugitive Captain Roberts. We have orders not to let him escape. Return to the base or we will open fire.”

As the Moon dwindled behind them, the
Blind Faith
finally lifted off from the crater, accelerating at reckless velocity low to the lunar surface, trying unsuccessfully to remain below radar scans.

“Go, Davlin,” Rlinda said through clenched teeth.

BeBob knotted his fingers together, glancing at their screens and then out the front windowport. “Just so long as he’s careful with my ship. I don’t think even high-risk insurance covers damage incurred while fleeing from authorities.”

“Better check your policy, BeBob. But not right now, okay?”

“Just thinking ahead.”

Seeing the second ship appear, the Remora squadron split up, half of the fast fighter ships swooping off to intercept the
Blind Faith
. “That’s Roberts’s ship,” said the squadron commander. “The
Voracious Curiosity
is just a decoy.”

“I guess a bait and switch is just too much for their imaginations.” Rlinda grinned.

“Don’t celebrate yet, Rlinda—half of them are still on our tail.”

“That’s better than having all of them after us.” She continued on her erratic trajectory, throwing the two of them from side to side faster than the stabilizers could compensate. “BeBob, set a course out of this system. How soon can we engage the Ildiran stardrive and leave the EDF ships in our exhaust?”

“Umm...no sooner than they can.”

Before the Remoras could intercept the second fleeing ship, the
Blind Faith
shot out into open space. Its engines were powered beyond their maximums, the exhaust cowlings glowing cherry red from unmitigated thrust.

Over an open channel came a wavering staticky image, supposedly transmitted from the cockpit of BeBob’s ship, no doubt distorted by the huge power expenditure of its flight. The screen showed the visage of Branson Roberts himself. “You have no right to chase me,” the mock BeBob said. “I’ve been unfairly charged and convicted by a kangaroo court. You’re hunting an innocent man.”

“Hey! How did Davlin doctor that up so fast?”

Rlinda smiled. “Probably part of his training as a specialist in obscure details.”

“Does my voice really sound like that? High and squeaky?”

Rlinda turned her big brown eyes to him. “If you were really in the
Faith
’s cockpit right now, you’d sound a lot squeakier.”

BeBob slumped back in his copilot chair.

As Davlin pulled farther away from the pursuing squadron, two more Remoras broke off from the
Curiosity
and joined the primary hunt.

But several EDF fighters stuck close as Rlinda flew the
Voracious Curiosity
on an erratic course to climb out of the solar system. The short-range fighters didn’t have as much fuel as her ship did, but they had greater speed. They could close around the
Curiosity
long before she could outrun them.

Rlinda and BeBob worked together in the cockpit like two components of a precision machine. It was just like old times.

The
Blind Faith
sent another transmission, and BeBob’s simulated face was even more desperate than before. He looked like a man capable of anything. “You leave Rlinda alone! The
Curiosity
has nothing to do with me.”

BeBob looked over at her. “Does he really think that’ll work?”

She rested her chin on her knuckles for a moment. “Davlin wouldn’t rely on anything quite so simplistic. The question is, what’s he really up to?”

They watched the drama play out far below. The Remoras closed in like a pack of wolves, but the
Blind Faith
surprised them all by looping around in such a high-G reversal that it should have smashed any living pilot into jelly, or at least knocked him unconscious. Somehow, though, Davlin continued to fly his ship in the opposite direction. The
Faith
careened directly toward the pursuing EDF ships. It was obviously a suicide run—or at least intended to look like one.

“He’s playing a game of chicken with my ship!”

As the cargo ship roared toward the cluster of EDF fighters, the Remoras scattered. They opened fire on the ship’s engines, trying to cripple it, but the
Faith
flew too fast, and their shots did only minimal damage, scoring the hull. The reckless vessel continued to accelerate, and its engines roared scarlet.

The
Blind Faith
did not deviate in its course, but plowed into their grouping like an out-of-control pulse-racer slamming into a stadium full of spectators. The EDF ships scrambled to avoid collision.

Then, immediately after it had passed through the flurry of Remoras, the
Blind Faith
exploded. Its engine casings burst open, reactor exhaust flamed out and split the vessel. Shrapnel sprayed in a spherical cloud, peppering several fast fighters that were too close. The EDF attack ships spun out of control, calling for emergency reinforcement and rescue vessels.

Rlinda stared in awe and disbelief. “Davlin, what did you do that for?”

BeBob blinked his big sad eyes at her. “My ship...”

Fighting to concentrate, Rlinda looked at the tactical screens that showed space around them. “Thanks to that explosion, we’ve doubled our lead. It’s time to take advantage of the distraction.” Her heart felt heavy, but she couldn’t believe Davlin had given his life to save them. It just didn’t sound like him.

By now, all the Remoras had turned about, racing up above the planetary orbits. The closest group of fighters accelerated again, anxious to end the chase.

“Sore losers,” BeBob said, still numb with shock.

“Five minutes and I’ll jump us with the stardrive. Right now, go down to the cargo bay. There’s a few dozen loose crates and tanks.”

BeBob ran out of the cockpit, already knowing what she meant to do. As the seconds ticked by and the Remoras came closer, she looked at the cargo bay imagers to see BeBob shoving crates, pallets, tanks, and spare parts into the middle of the cargo bay floor. Her ship’s engines were hot and on the brink of overloading. She didn’t want to end up like the
Blind Faith.

“That’s enough junk, BeBob. Thirty seconds and I’m ready. Get your butt up here.”

BeBob was already pulling himself through the cockpit door. He slammed himself into the seat and buckled the crash restraints. As the Remoras got closer, a flurry of jazer potshots spangled past them.

“Dumping the cargo bay.” Without draining the atmosphere, she opened the hatches, vomiting a blast of rapidly expanding air and sparkling debris that flew out in a smokescreen.

The unexpected debris acted like a field of land mines, and the Remoras hammered into it. The pursuing ships spun out of control; one suffered severe wing damage. Rlinda didn’t particularly want to destroy EDF soldiers who were just trying to do their jobs—but BeBob’s life was at stake.

She couldn’t stick around to see how it all turned out. She activated the Ildiran stardrive and lurched out of the solar system, hoping to stay one step ahead of General Lanyan’s angry pursuers.