“We don’t have time to sleep,” Shantu said.
“We don’t have time not to sleep,” Micah corrected. “Our world is depending on us and we’re sitting here going in circles.”
“And making a lot of noise doing it.” Eroles sighed. “He’s right, we’re getting nowhere. Maybe there are better ideas, but none of us are seeing them tonight.”
“Then we reconvene right after mornmeal?” Debrett asked from his screen.
All eyes went to Tal, who nodded. “Yes, I think that’s best. Hantick seven.”
The room buzzed with good nights and farewells, and the screens blinked off one by one as the other base commanders retired for the night. Tal pushed her chair back and stood, grateful to be moving at last.
The captain remained in her chair, staring straight ahead. She’d been quiet for the past thirty ticks, having tired of the increasingly useless discussion, and Tal couldn’t blame her.
“I’ll walk you to your quarters, Captain.”
“Hm?” Serrado looked up at her, then around the room. “Yes, fine, that’s…” She trailed off, her eyes focused on nothing at all, and frowned.
Tal glanced at Micah, who shrugged and turned to clasp Northcliff’s arm in farewell. Shantu stepped up and held out his arm, and Tal had just grasped it when Serrado spoke.
“You have to mind-shek them.”
She dropped Shantu’s arm and swung around in shock. “What?”
The captain’s distant expression was gone, replaced by a look of determination. “You have to mind-shek them. I’ve been sitting here for two hanticks listening to you try to find a way to beat superior weaponry and shielding with inferior technology, and it’s not going to happen. It’s never going to happen. Starting over tomorrow morning isn’t going to change the reality of that. But you’re ignoring the one weapon you have that they don’t: your empathy. Destroy their minds. Make it impossible for them to fight. Tell them to kill themselves. Or each other.”
The room went silent.
“It doesn’t work that way,” Shantu said at last. “Though I admire your cold blood.”
Tal nodded. “Empathy isn’t telepathy. We can’t tell them to do anything. And it’s impossible to compel a person to commit suicide, unless that was already part of their mindset and you’re just encouraging it. Self-preservation is the most basic instinct of all. Not even the strongest empath could overcome that.”
“Then make them kill each other. I know you can; your Betrayer did it.”
“Great Mother.” Colonel Razine came over and took Tal’s chair. “I don’t think you realize what you’re suggesting. Even if it were possible, it wouldn’t be worth it.”
“Why isn’t it possible?” Serrado met Tal’s eyes and added, “You would have forced Lhyn to act against her own character and do what you wanted her to. How would you have accomplished that?”
For a moment Tal could hardly breathe, and she couldn’t look away. Colonel Razine saved her.
“It would have taken a Sharing. To bind a person’s future choices against their will requires a deep reset of their emotions.”
“And I doubt the Voloth would stop, open the hatch, and invite us in for a Sharing,” Shantu said.
“No, wait.” Tal was able to think again, now that Serrado’s attention was on the others. “We don’t have to affect future choices. We have to affect present ones. She’s talking about covert projection.”
“I am?”
“No, she’s talking about fatal covert projection,” Yaserka said.
“That has never been used in warfare—”
“Nobody could do that—”
“The fifth level of the Pit is full of prisoners who could—”
“Shekking Mother, you would release the worst filth of Alsea on us? What happens when—”
“How ironic that an alien would have a better understanding of the stakes than—
“This is madness. Perhaps warriors could sink that low, but the scholars—”
Tal’s ears were ringing as the voices rose louder and louder, six highly agitated Alseans shouting over each other while Serrado looked on in confusion.
“Shut up!” Tal roared.
The arguments stopped abruptly.
“Much better. Now let’s try this again, one at a time. Captain Serrado is right. We have to use every weapon at hand, no matter how distasteful.”
“I agree,” Shantu said. “This is our survival we’re talking about. Leave the philosophical debates to the religious scholars. Fahla’s covenant isn’t meant to bind us to utter destruction.”
Colonel Northcliff nodded. “Does Fahla’s covenant even apply to alien invaders? I don’t think it does.”
“I may be in the minority here,” said Colonel Razine, “but I do not believe we should sell our souls to save our bodies.”
“I can’t believe you’re even considering this.” Yaserka was so horrified that his front slipped, exposing his emotions. “The Voloth won’t have to destroy us; we’ll do it to ourselves!”
“Speaking for the builders, and possibly all of the mid and low empaths,” Eroles said, “the idea of the entire high empath segment of the warrior caste engaging in mass covert projection is terrifying. If you break Fahla’s covenant now—and in a way that is unprecedented in our history—then how do you wind that back down? How do you go back to what you were before and give up that power?”
“I understand your concern, but—”
“No, you do not, Lancer Tal! You’re one of them! You have no idea how the rest of us feel.”
“Eroles…” Shantu spoke in an unusually quiet voice.
“Oh, don’t try to soothe me. You’re one of them too. It’s easy to sit on your side of the fence and say this is a temporary necessity. Try being one of the vast majority of Alseans who depend on the high empaths to hold themselves in check. You’re talking about shattering the one thing that holds you back, and you think we shouldn’t be worried?”
“Excuse me,” Micah said. “You do not speak for all of the mid and low empaths. This low empath understands exactly what the stakes are. And I clearly have a better opinion of high empaths than you, because I don’t view them as wild animals pulling at the chain, just waiting for it to break.”
“That is not what I meant—”
“It certainly sounded like it—”
The voices rose once more, and Tal pinched the bridge of her nose. A touch on her shoulder brought her head up to find Captain Serrado standing in front of her. Tal leaned in to hear her over the noise.
“I’m sorry, Lancer Tal. I had no idea I’d be stirring up a wasp’s nest. But you have to do this. It’s the only way.”
“I know it is. But as you can see, it’s not going to be easy.”
Serrado watched them argue for a few more pipticks and shook her head. “Easier than slavery and death. Hey!” she shouted suddenly, startling Tal. “Eyes front, now!”
The room went silent as everyone stared at her in surprise.
“Thank you. Now, I’m not Alsean, so I have no say in your philosophical debate, but perhaps I can put it into a different context for you.” She reached around her back, pulled out the hand phaser Micah had returned to her earlier, and held it up. “This is a deadly weapon. I’ve been carrying it among you since the morning after we crashed. In the past I have used it to injure, and I have used it to kill. But I’ve never felt the urge to use it on innocent people, nor would I be allowed to get away with it if I did.”
She let her hand fall, but kept the phaser in view. “Your high empaths have deadly weapons built right into their heads. They’ve been among you every day for thousands of cycles. From what I understand, they also don’t feel the urge to use those weapons on innocent people. And the tiny minority who do are not allowed to get away with it. Am I correct?”
“You’re correct,” Shantu said. He was actually smiling.
“Then I don’t see how using empathy in battle will be any different. It’s a weapon.
Use it when you need to; put it away when you don’t.”
She holstered her phaser. “Lancer Tal tells me that empathy is one of Fahla’s greatest gifts to your people. I believe her. She Shared with me this morning, and it didn’t feel like a weapon then. It felt like the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced. She didn’t force it on me, though she certainly could have. I really can’t imagine her suddenly turning into a different person after using her empathy in a battle. Quite the opposite, in fact. Your problem isn’t going to be holding back high empaths who have suddenly discovered the joy of hurting people. It’s going to be helping high empaths who have had to use their gift in a way they never thought they would.”
Chapter 51
Apology
Ekatya straightened her jacket, took a fortifying breath, and knocked on the door. Footsteps sounded inside, a very familiar, long-legged stride, and her nervousness increased. Then the door opened inward, and she met Lhyn’s eyes for the first time since she’d tried to leave this morning.
Lhyn looked her up and down. “Huh. Thought you’d be in worse shape than that. You don’t look so bad.” She left the door open and walked back inside. It wasn’t exactly an invitation, but it wasn’t a rejection either.
Ekatya closed the door behind her and ventured as far as the living area, standing uncomfortably in the middle of the room. Lhyn had gone to the sideboard and was pouring two glasses of spirits.
“Sit down,” Lhyn said without turning.
She sat on the couch.
Lhyn came back with the glasses, handed one over, and pointedly sat in the chair opposite the couch. “I’ll give you credit for showing up, at least. But I don’t know what you’re expecting from me. I’m so angry at you that I can’t even—” She stopped, a hitch in her breath, and took a large gulp of her spirits.
“You have every right to be. I know I screwed up.”
“Is that what you call it? What a small word that is for trying to sell out an entire civilization. Not to mention leaving me. Oh, and beating up on Lancer Tal after she did nothing but help me. And you. And every fucking person on that shuttle.”
Shippers, but she had her work cut out for her. Lhyn was not going to make this easy.
“Okay,” Ekatya said carefully. “I know you’ve heard about our fight. Did you also hear why we got into it?”
“No, but I assume you were pissed off when you realized she beat you at your own game.”
“I wasn’t playing a game.” She heard the edge in her own voice and made herself slow down. “Anyway, that’s not why we fought. I thought she used empathic force on you.”
“You what?” Lhyn put her glass on the side table and leaned forward. “Are you kidding me?”
“She admitted to forcing Kameha and said she had warrants for every member of my crew except me. I thought that explained why you showed up in Alsean clothing and refused to leave.”
“Oh, I see. It couldn’t possibly be because I have a mind of my own and the willingness to do the right thing. I told you I was going to do that three days earlier. You just refused to take me seriously.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, Lancer Tal did an excellent job of disabusing me of my assumptions, right about the time she left me on the floor of the training room. It was like a first-year cadet getting into a fight with the combat instructor.”
“I heard you had to go to the healing center. Are you really all right?”
Ekatya tried not to read too much into her concern. “I’m fine. Lancer Tal patched me up, and then I did the same for her. At least, the parts that I could. We had a…good talk afterward.”
“Stop right there. What do you mean, the parts you could?”
“I, er, cracked her rib.”
After a pause, Lhyn said, “Some cadet. Either you’re better than you say, or she’s not as good as you think, or she let you hurt her.”
“She—” Ekatya stopped. It had never occurred to her that Lancer Tal might have let herself get hurt. No, it didn’t make sense. But she had definitely limited herself in the fight, and that had probably meant she hadn’t been able to defend as aggressively as she would have if she’d been prepared to do real damage.
“She was trying not to hurt me too badly,” she finished. “I’m afraid I wasn’t operating under the same rules.”
Lhyn shook her head and reached for her glass. “Well, I’m impressed with your honesty. But it’s not helping your cause much. What did you talk about afterward?”
So much for honesty. If she said they’d talked about her tyree status, Lhyn would dismiss the idea out of hand. Now was not the time.
“She helped me understand what is and isn’t acceptable in terms of empathic force, and told me exactly what she and her people did to my crew. I’d assumed the worst, but…it wasn’t like that. And we talked a little about our families.”
Lhyn stared at her, an unwilling smile tugging at one corner of her mouth. “You talked about your families.”
“Ah…yes?”
“After you beat each other up.”
“Yes.”
“You are eggs from the same bird, you realize that, right?”
She hadn’t thought about it that way. “I guess we are. I mean, we’d be in the same caste if I were Alsean, and we do a very similar job.”
“It’s not the job. It’s your personalities. And that warrior mentality.”
Ekatya shrugged. “I like her.”
“And that’s why I can’t understand how you could leave her and all of her people to the Voloth.”
“It wasn’t personal.” The words were hardly out of her mouth when she remembered Lancer Tal saying exactly the same thing this morning. “And I didn’t do it. If you heard about my fight, then I hope you heard about that, too.”
“Why do you think I even let you in this room? If you hadn’t cancelled that self-destruct, we wouldn’t be talking right now.”
“Then what can I say except I’m sorry? You were right. It took me too long to realize it, but I did. And I was coming back for you.”
“I know,” Lhyn whispered, her eyes tearing up. “But you left me. You walked away without saying good-bye and you left, and I thought that was it. And now you’re sitting here and I’m just supposed to forget that happened? You broke my heart. I can’t fix that in one day.”
Ekatya ached to hold her, but she stayed where she was, her own eyes misting. “You left me too. And you did it in such a way that I couldn’t say good-bye. I thought you did that on purpose, that you didn’t want a good-bye. I couldn’t believe you would stand in the middle of an entire squad of Guards, in front of half the damn base, and—” She stopped and cleared the tears out of her throat. “You’re not the only one who got her heart broken.”
“I didn’t leave you, Ekatya. I begged you to stay.” Lhyn’s eyes overflowed and she wiped her cheeks. “I begged you to stay and you looked at me like I was one of your crew pissing you off.”
Ekatya couldn’t stand it any longer. Crossing to Lhyn’s chair, she knelt beside it and touched her hand. “I’m sorry. I felt ambushed, and I was angry. But I am so glad that wasn’t my last view of you.” She kissed Lhyn’s hand, folded it in her own, and reached up to wipe away a fresh tear. “I’m glad you let me in tonight, if only so that I could say I love you, and I will do my best to make sure you believe me at some point. Hopefully soon.”
“I love you too. But right now that’s not enough. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I do. Would you like me to go, then?”
Lhyn nodded, then shook her head. “I don’t know. If I had half a brain, I’d take you to bed right now, because we’re in the end times, aren’t we? Roris and Commander Kameha gave me a reality check today. I know you tried to tell me, but…I guess I didn’t want to believe how little you could actually do. They said you can save Blacksun, but the city might become the last refuge.”
Ekatya smiled. Finally, she could be something Lhyn might be proud of. “Their informa
tion is a little out of date. First of all, I think the Alseans have a much better chance of beating the Voloth than I would have dreamed a day ago. And second, I just finished introducing Lancer Tal to Admiral Tsao.”
“You what?” Lhyn sat up straight, her eyes wide.
Ekatya kissed her hand again, let it go, and returned to her seat. “The balance of power has changed. I haven’t had time to tell anyone else yet, but in tonight’s war council we finally found out what was happening to the hullskin.”
She explained everything they’d learned, and what it meant in terms of the Voloth fighters. “But the most important thing is that it’s not the Voloth who have a devastating weapon. It’s the Alseans. And while the Assembly ministers might not know their asses from a hole in the hull, they do know how to act in their own interests. They would be utterly insane to let the Voloth take this planet now. It holds a weapon that could destroy either side.”
“Are you saying—”
“Reinforcements are on their way.”
Lhyn gasped and covered her mouth as the tears flowed anew. “Oh, my stars. Ekatya…”
“Of course the peace treaty hasn’t been annulled yet, so we’re in a little political limbo right now. Seems to be the theme of my life lately. But Admiral Tsao thinks that will be wrapped up by this time tomorrow. She’s already holding general orders of engagement and has sent the nearest ships to respond. There are three destroyers and a Pulsar-class ship heading this way. They’ll be here in seven Alsean days. There’s a Core-class coming as well, but it’ll be a day later.”